Reason 1 -  several of the organisations that we have featured here on the TM site will be presenting at the conference so we are certainly looking forward to hearing the next instalment of the stories from:

• Mike Booth , Cable & Wireless– who is speaking on More learning, less time, money & resource - achieving this through technology (29th )
• Jan Cowie, The Priory Group  speaking on Developing the skills to deliver effective online learning (28th)
• Nick Shackleton-Jones, BBC debating the use of social media in learning ( together with Clive Shepherd & Robin Hoyle)

Reason 2 - Towards Maturity will also be at the event with Laura Overton helping organisations to use our extensive research base to help them:

• Ensure behavioural change in learners (session as part of the main conference on 29th)
• Learning technology at work – debunking the myths and accelerating the promise (free seminar 10.30 29th)

Reason 3  - The exhibition is free to attend with 100+ organisations and there are over 20 excellent free seminars including some from our Community of Excellence:

• Piers Lea from Line Communications  -  Results, results, results! Blended learning successes from across Europe (15.30, 28th)
• Martin Belton -e2train - 10 rules for designing and delivering e-learning (10.30, 28th)

Reason 4  - Save up to 30% if you book before 27th August plus all paying conference delegates Free access to LM Matters’ 50 Lessons & Harvard ManageMentor plus a FREE Toshiba ultra-compact HD camcorder.

Venue - NEC, Birmingham B40 1NT
Dates 28th & 29th September
Cost – exhibition & seminar programme – free, conference fees

Find out more at - http://www.learnevents.com/index.php

IITT members can attend the seminar and exhibition for free on the 7th from 1pm. The full conference starts on the 8th of September.

Find out more here: http://www.iitt.org.uk/

Programme highlights include:

• Bob Mosher – Chief Learning Evangelist at Learning Guide. Bob has been in the IT training field for years and was previously director of learning strategy at Microsoft. I have heard him several times now and his practical insights on learning, performance and making this stuff work at work really make sense!
• 2 parallel tracks on  Leading learning  - including Paul Jagger from IBM ( leading by example, you can hear more here !)  and Delivering learning – including Clive Shepherd on the New Blended learning, Nick Shackleton Jones  and Julie Wedgewood  – all of whom have been active contributors to the TM site!
• Plus hands on workshops for those developing learning.

Venue : LONDON MARRIOTT GROSVENOR SQUARE, LONDON W1K 6JP

Cost:  £425 +vat for members and £495 +vat for non members

Places are still available  - click here to book.

 You can see the slide deck here but this is a summary of the discussions that took place on the day!

  7 challenges facing BILD members today:

• We need to deliver more learning with less resources?
• We need to respond faster to the business that is changing around us?
• We  need to prove that we are relevant to business today if we are to grab their attention
• We need to become more evidence based
• We need to re-evaluate the metrics we use for talent managment and learning
• We need to meet changing learner expectations
• We need to be seen as a vehicle for change and not a cost centre

We discusssed the role of technology enabled learning as a means of supporting these challenges  - does technology add to the pressure that L&D are under or reduce it? The view was that once we learn how to embrace new ways of learning, the opportunities for change are released, equiping L&D staff to engage with business in new ways. The following areas were highlighted to build good practice

7 areas identified to support change

• Get involved in benchmarking but do not benchmark against movable technology trends, instead look at impact.
• Harnessing technology in a more meaningful way - sharing examples 
• Buidling credible conversations with management - learning to research the business challenges and ask meaningful questions.
• Improving performance consulting ability to engage with business more meaningfully
• Developing quick wins within the business
• Work with the business to develop a few meaningful metrics & just focus on those
• Use the TM best practice benchmarks to identify current areas of weakness and focus on those.

Other TM highlights from the BILD event included:

Immersive learning and serious games

We’ve previously featured research and articles on Immersive Learning and the use of games and virtual worlds in learning, and David Wortley, Serious Games Institute, provided further examples of how such technologies are being applied to many diverse areas of L&D. The example shown of ‘Physical Simulation’ was so life-like as to be somewhat unnerving! Technology is changing learners and David provide strong evidence on new ways of learning, new devices and new challenges. As he concluded – ‘Learning is being transformed from a transfer of existing knowledge by experts into a facilitated, self-directed discovery of new knowledge in collaboration with our peers.’ While David focused on what can be done today, Alan Fletcher , OU, took the audience through a whistle stop tour of what is possible. It is clear that the Knowledge Media Institute at the OU is involved in some extremely exciting research and it’s certainly worth taking a look at their website (www.kmi.open.ac.uk) to understand more about social semantics, virtual presence, ontologies, reasoning and Web 3.0!

Mobile learning

Geoff Stead, Tribal Group provided insight on how mobile learning is coming of age, sharing examples. Refreshingly his session recognised some of the inevitable compromises that have to be made in developing and distributing mobile content. It’s certainly worth taking a look at the MoLeNet (http://www.molenet.org.uk/) website for further insight on many of the current mobile learning projects that are underway. Interestingly Geoff sates that he’s still unsure if mobile learning can work if it’s unsupported, and our belief is that any learning using technology needs to be supported to maximise the benefits. Brian Bishop, Caspian Learning, used the Gartner Group ‘Hype Cycle’ to frame his presentation as he explored the emergence of technologies such as cloud computing, augmented reality and haptics along with some maturing technologies including Caspian Learning’s Thinking Worlds and evaluation models.

Peter Butler, BT

The BT Dare2share story is a great one which we’ve already featured at Towards Maturity (http://www.towardsmaturity.org/article/2009/03/20/bt-dares-share/), but it was refreshing to hear Peter talk candidly about the challenges that B/T face as they transform the business and how the imminent roll-out of Dare2share throughout the organisation will play a pivotal role in embedding learning.

Frankly in this day and age there is really no excuse! With the new tools in our hands, new understanding about supporting performance and the ways that people learn and fresh research on how to deliver results, why is it that so many are stuck in old style thinking and delivery methods?

For 6 years, Towards Maturity have been researching how new tools are bringing about improved learning innovation , agility and . As a result we have been linking up with  Training Journal’s L&D 2020 research project to understand how L&D needs to transform in order to deliver.

We will be presenting at the  TJ conference and awards (21st September) on Using learning innovation to accelerate business change.

If you are concerned about adapting to changing business needs, then please do join us. Other speakers will also be addressing this critical issues and include:

• Martyn Sloman ( looking at the new skillsets for L&D professionals)
• John Baker , Head of Learning and Development at Legal and General  ( looking at L&D as the new business partner)
• Chris Robinson – ( looking at ingenious tricks for evaluating training impact)
  

Venue –The Commonwealth Club Northumberland Avenue London, WC2N 5AP

Cost - £495 +vat ( discounts for charity, and multiple bookings)

Date – 21st September 2010

To book & find out more - http://www.tjconferenceandawards.com/

In 2010, L&D are under pressure to do both but do current L&D benchmarks fail to inspire the changes needed? 

Why does Business Benchmark?

At a strategic level, benchmarking has been credited for literally turning companies around. The earliest  example of this came from  Xerox,  the first pioneer of benchmarking, who used the approach to learn from their competitors in order to redefine their core offering. As a result they were able to regain market share at a time when their business was being rapidly eroded away by global competition. 

Now organisations use benchmarking to specifically consider new strategic directions. for the organisation and to improve processes within core business functions such as finance, procurement, HR, sales and others. In Japan, benchmarking is a core management practice - all managers are expected to not only keep up with colleagues but also to surpass them. The process of benchmarking becomes part of a process of continual improvement.

At its heart, benchmarking is a learning activity - as one author on the topic suggests  ‘Those that benchmark do not have to reinvent the wheel! (Parker 96).

So what is benchmarking?

Benchmarking is the process of comparing key performance indicators for one organisation with the indicators of others who are  considered to represent the industry standard or best practice for that field.

According to the Global Benchmarking Network, this process of comparison can be divided into informal benchmarking  and formal benchmarking (sound familiar?!)

• Informal benchmarking is used almost unconsciously by most as we compare our activities, learn from experts, consult with peers and harness the web.

Formal benchmarking is divided into  two areas – performance and best practice benchmarking.

• Performance benchmarking provides a comparison of key performance indicators which will vary from function to function. Typically they may be defined in terms of cost, cycle times, customer satisfaction, product performance , absenteeism but generally they are set to provide a standard against which other achievements can be measured. However performance benchmarking alone merely highlights the gap. It is of limited value unless the results are acted on.
• Best practice benchmarking on the other hand focuses on action – why are others getting the results they are getting and how can I improve as a result of that knowledge?

With this in mind, benchmarking becomes more than just comparing where you are with historical data – it has to be a dynamic process that reflects continual change. Equally, benchmarking isn’t just about comparing your situation with those in the identical industry – much can be learned from other industries facing similar problems and a new perspective can release new creativity. Is also isn’t just about outputs – benchmarking has to consider the processes that impact the outputs if it is to have any value at all.

Are our current L&D benchmarks adequate to help address the challenge we face?

According to the GBN, the most popular areas to conduct benchmarking projects are in customer service ,administration, training and human resources, and corporate strategy and planning. And it is good to see Training and HR in the list of popular areas.

We are operating at a time where  skills are seen as essential to leaving the recession and with resources being slashed , it is critical that as a core function the L&D function is able to redefine it’s offering, improve performance and take on a new strategic direction.

As we can see from other business areas, benchmarking provides an ideal opportunity to raise the bar within the function in terms of performance, products and focus.

However when we look at typical training benchmarking , the most detailed  performance indicators that are currently used  include % of staff attending training sessions, % of budget spent on training, average cost per employee, average test scores, in recent years, we’ve also seen the numbers of programmes that are web enabled creep into industry benchmarks.These are all input indicators and so far are all based on the traditional model of classroom training.

But , times are changing and these traditional benchmarks just do not serve the learning and development adequately – new tools, new methods of learning and new business expectations for L&D to respond faster with more just in time learning approaches mean that we need to redefine what good looks like.

Refining what good looks like - a new benchmark for L&D

At the start of our own benchmarking journey,  our aim was to  investigate how L&D departments were using technologies to make a real impact on the businesses they were serving.  With this focus on impact we had to consider new performance indicators for L&D that historically had only belonged in the benchmarking domain of other functions.

For example we considered indicators of efficiency improvement, bottom line business impact, staff motivation and morale as well as take up and speed to competency. This has now given us a measure of ‘performance benchmarking’ that is unique in the industry. But creating performance benchmarks, as we’ve mentioned above isn’t enough. It is just as important, if not more so, to dig into the best practices behind the performance so that we can act on them.

And this is where the process starts to get real teeth!  The benchmark has adapted over the years through the input of key industry players and the 1000+ organisations who have participated to date.The focus is always on continually improving the business impact of learning and identifying practical proven, good practice to help deliver performance.  Yes we can benchmark informally through excellent  industry networks, conferences and access to case studies and articles but  a professional , continually improving L&D function needs to be supported by more formal benchmarking processes if it is to rise above the flames of current market fires. 

With the help and support of industry, we are beginning to see the TM benchmark step up to that challenge.  WHilst it is primarily focussed on the way that technology improves learning innovation, this industry collaboration has ensured that the TM benchmark process is current, representative of L&D needs and reflects the full range of challenges we are facing today. As a result the feedback on the 2010 benchmark todate has been incredible – over 70% of those who have been through it say that the process has provided them with new ideas to take their learning agenda forward – and that is before they have received their personalised benchmark comparison and action plan based on best practice. 

Organisations are using it to influence change internally – as one participant put it ‘ Taking part in this benchmark  is a deliberate strategy by our CLO to raise awareness of how far the organisation has to move to join the modern world!’ Others have just been waiting for an industry benchmark for L&D that reflects the modern world – ‘I believe this is the best survey I have spent my time on .The questions were well thought through and I could for once relate them to my organisation that I support’.

If you have not been involved in benchmarking before , 2010 may be the time to try it , The TM benchmark is completely targetted at today's L&D department, is focussed on best practice benchmarks to support performance and it is free to participate through to the 31st July 2010 – don’t miss out !
.

7 Reasons to get involved with the Towards Maturity Benchmark

1. Review your strategic direction - will your current L&D practices position you to thrive and survive or is it time to change? 
2. Improve performance - Compare  your activity with the L&D practices proven to deliver results.
3. Influence change - use results to help build your business case for change
4. Manage resources more effectively  - focus your activity on the areas that deliver 
5. Save time -  Use it to review and redirect your action plan to maximise chances of success
6.  Celebrate success - Provide independently verified proof of distance travelled in your company’s journey with learning innovation
7. Encourage others – your successes will help set the KPI's that other's aspire to

Find out more at www.towardsmaturity.org/2010benchmark ( free personalised benchmark  feedback, value £200, for those who complete before 31st July 2010)

Well it has been an interesting first few weeks as the new coalition government is bedding in. The message clearly is that things are going to be different moving forward as the government  takes ‘ immediate and decisive action’! And for many in the public sector that action looks like it is going to mean just 4 things cuts cuts cuts and cuts!

The day after the election, those cuts were top of the agenda at the Public Sector Learning Conference ran by  Learning Pool. It was good to hear the perspective of Rob Whiteman, the newly appointed head of IDeA  on the challenges that lie ahead within the public sector and how to respond to them  .

Rob’s view was that over the next 3 years, those in the public sector can expect some  massive budget cuts with some organisations reducing by up to a fifth.  However, he felt that downsizing won’t get organisations very far. Service improvement used to be about be about increased spend and whilst cutting spend is a good shock tactic, it will not solve the problem alone – he challenged the audience ‘how do we become a people that deliver better outcomes with less money? Innovation is about change and collaboration and collaboration means that we need to engage in a way that is meaningful and often uncomfortable.

As I listened, it made me wonder if there were lessons there for those who are working in L&D within the sector as well.

Is it time for learning professionals in the public sector to sit tight and wait for the axe to fall or is it time to adapt from current manifestos and adopt new policies to come up with a new approach to delivering improved services but with a deficit of funds and support?

Change - time to let go of long held beliefs

One decisive action that I think L&D staff will need to take to make a conscious decision to lay down previous agendas  in order to address this new challenge.  This may mean changing the way that we think about how we meet the learning and performance needs of business but letting go of strongly held beliefs about the way we achieve that goal can be uncomfortable (Dave and Nick will probably testify to that!)

There are some manifestos that many of us hold onto that will not be appropriate going forward. Those traditionally holding a view that L&D departments are there to deliver courses to support the business may find that they need to do more to justify their existence or find themselves in the first line of fire. Those working with learning technologies may find themselves in a similar position. Many use technology to automate the old way of ‘doing learning’ ie providing courses on line but this may not be enough moving forward. If we can’t justify how a technology enabled approach to learning really makes a difference to critical business issues such as performance, improved service delivery and efficiency then do we deserve to be kept on the books?

What might change look like? Fewer courses (online and face to face)– that’s probably a given! What about shifting from learning to performance support? What about the learning that takes place without us – does this need to be encouraged and enabled even more in this new environment? Can we afford to design to every ‘learning style’ or should we only be concentration on the helping the organisations meet its pressing needs of delivering improved services with fewer resources?
Learning and development professionals have a significant role to play in equipping public sector organisations for change but only if we are able to change ourselves.(Check out how Cheshire ICT Services did this!)

Collaboration

To enable change we have to learn to collaborate in different ways.  Collaborating directly with the lines of business who are delivering services will be critical moving forward. As Rob Whiteman suggested, that collaboration needs to challenge the preconceived ways of working and learning in order to identify an innovative new approach to the problem.

That will mean asking difficult questions and identifying learning solutions that are unexpected. Do you really need someone to go on a 3 week orientation  course for their new role or can you help them get up to speed much faster with a combination of online resources & support, on the job tasks and support via a virtual meeting space?

Collaborating better with other departments to pool resources may also be necessary. For example, can sharepoint be used to help provide innovative learning support ( as in BT’s innovative Dare2Share project)? Can online meeting spaces be used to bring cohorts of learners together (Devon County council provides a great example of this)? Can internal communications portals be used to deliver learning – or learning portals be used to deliver communications messages?

We won’t know until we start to investigate the possibilities.

The power of Community

Pooling internal resources is one thing but should we also be looking to pooling learning resources with others outside of the operation? This will require collaboration on a scale not yet seen by the public sector and technology has the potential to provide the glue that sticks all this activity. Organisations like LearningPool  are making it possible for organisations across the public sector to collaborate together to deliver improved efficiencies.

For example,  Plymouth City Council saved £82,000 by using e-learning to deliver their mandatory Government Connect information security training to staff; the e-learning cost £3 per delegate compared to a classroom cost of £85. Plymouth then shared the Government Connect course they created to the ‘pool’ and Essex County Council repurposed it to deliver to 9,000 of their own employees, saving even more. This sharing meant that Essex was able to create their e-learning course for £1 per head compared to their classroom cost of £65.

LearningPool isn’t the only group to support cross organisational collaboration. The Charity Learning Consortium do something similar for the charity sector and Brightwave  also works in the public sector to ensure collaborative action drives down cost.  We can join these specific communities or  start engaging with the wider community via groups such as the eLearning Network   or the Learning and Skills group  .

You can also take part in the TM 2010 learning technology benchmark – a powerful opportunity to harness collective knowledge and knowhow.

Now is the time to be active, to learn from each other, to share resources and collectively start to innovate.

Communicate

How we communicate our learning offering will be critical moving forward. This is not about rolling out platitudes about learning and performance or even about technology and efficiency– time is probably passed for that.

It is critical that we really start to articulate the benefits for the organisation, to engage stakeholders and be part of a new learning culture that looks at delivering performance under pressure.  I strongly recommend the work commissioned by Becta to support businesses in building the business case for innovative learning practices . For example, their Delivering Results report helps L&D staff to articulate how to improve services, build efficiency, address the green agenda, increase productivity.   It  is this type of contribution that will be sorely missed when Becta go but the work that they have done on behalf of employers illustrates how important it is that using technology in learning is not enough to bring about change -  we also need to communicate what we are doing in a language understood by all in business if we are to be around in the long run.
 
Immediate , decisive action!

So 2010 has to be a year of ‘immediate and decisive action’ for those serving the public sector. In response to government directives for  cuts cuts cuts & cuts, L&D need to take  decisive action that  leads to change, collaboration, community and communication!

Getting results with learning technologies, 21st May 2010 from 09:30 – 15:10, London

The Skillstories Live network, convened by Business in the Community and supported by Investors in People, brings together organisations to share best practice around issues of skills development, mobilise you to take action through collaboration and share your experience, knowledge, and best practice. 

This event also marks the beginning of an exciting new relationship between Business in the Community and Towards Maturity, bringing together our mutual passion and expertise around advocating skills and innovation in the workplace.

Over the coming months, we will be finding creative ways of working together to achieve our common goals of supporting organisations in the use of learning technologies so that they are better able  respond to changing business skills needs. Together we look forward to raising the profile around the opportunities these technologies offer.

About the event – Getting Results with Learning Technologies

This event is a peer learning network for practitioners (HR, training, learning and development, in-house tutors/assessors, project managers etc).  The event will be hosted by Microsoft in London and is sponsored by Learn Direct, it will include sessions on:

• How Microsoft are leveraging learning technologies to support their own staff development and  how they are building critical digital skills through Britain Works
• Should we be demanding more? Controversial industry expert, Donald Clark will discuss new opportunities for learning innovation in business
• Kirstie Donnelly from Learndirect will be looking at the technology tools that we have in our hands today and how to make them work for us.
• Towards Maturity will be conducting a series of interactive workshops, based on our research and case studies, looking at practical solutions for addressing the challenges of implementing e-learning in the workplace . We’ll take a look at how to overcome objections, improve take up and get management buy-in.
• Most importantly there will be plenty of opportunity for peer networking and learning from each other as well as the opportunity to quiz an expert panel.

If you are a learning practiioner supporting learning in your business*, you can reserve your free place at the event or for more information please contact Anita Powell on 0207 566 6617 or email anita.powell@bitc.org.uk. There is no cost to delegates to attend, however a cancellation fee of £75 applies for non-attendance without 72 hours prior notice.

You can download more information below.

*regrettably this event is not open to learning providers and suppliers.

About  Business in the Community

Business in the Community mobilises business for good. Their members commit to take action on the key issues of today, be they people or planet, and create a unique platform for collaborative action. Business in the Community’s approach to responsible business provides a clear framework to address new challenges, improve business performance and benefit society. Their members recognise the relationship between responsible business practice, addressing social and environmental need and the role this plays in building confidence and creating wealth. BITC work across four areas of expertise in the workplace, marketplace, environment and community. By sharing knowledge and experience, and developing innovative solutions, we are a catalyst for change and demonstrate the positive impact business can have on society. 

With more than 800 companies in membership, BITC represent 1 in 5 of the UK private sector workforce and convene a network of global partners.

The Skillstories Live network is a peer learning network for practitioners (HR, training, learning and development, in-house tutors/assessors, project managers etc) developed by Business in the Community after requests from companies wanting the opportunity to learn from the experiences of other organisations and to be informed and consulted on skills developments and policies. For more information please see http://www.bitc.org.uk/workplace/skills/our_networks_and_eve.html

On April 29th, we are discussing these issues in a Learning and Skills Group webinar and will look at our mpact Indicator research and Evidence for Change programme to identify invaluable tricks and tips to help you grab management attention for your L&D programme – and keep it.

The slides for the webinar can be downloaded below.

We will be updating this article after the event to highlight:

• Top tips for creating manager apathy!
• Turning efficiency indicators into benefits
• Ideas for capturing and communicating success
• Tricks for tackling managerial indifference

Watch this space!

If you’re in the business of creating e-learning materials, then you’ll know how easy it is to get distracted from your primary goal by the contradictory pressures exerted upon you by your various stakeholders: make it as cheap as possible, as short as possible, as quickly as possible, while also as comprehensive as possible, as media-rich and engaging as possible.

As a designer of learning interventions for the workplace, your raison-d’ être is quite simple – the improvement of employee performance on-the-job; not winning awards, nor allowing management to tick all the boxes while going through the motions of delivering effective training. I have five secrets I’d like to share with you that might help you to keep focused amidst all this noise. You may even find you can get away with achieving more for very much less.

Secret 1: Don’t forget the learning

This may seem a little unnecessary, perhaps even patronising; after all, learning is your profession. However, as we’ve already discussed, the voice of the learning professional does not always rise strongly enough above those of the subject experts, technical specialists, creatives and project managers. The path to effective learning is neither obvious nor intuitive; if it was, we wouldn’t end up with so many interventions that comprise no more than a knowledge dump followed by a quiz. It pays to keep the core learning principles in mind and to keep it simple. Perhaps the best summary I’ve seen arose from the creation a few years ago of the 60-minute masters (1), a curriculum for the briefest possible course for wannabe designers, created by some of the world’s best. Here are the essential points that they came up with:

• Set a realistic goal
• Consider the content from the learner's point of view
• Hook learners in emotionally
• Present your material clearly, simply and in a logical order
• lluminate your material with imagery
• Use audio appropriately
• Put your material into context with examples, cases and stories
• Engage users with challenging interactions
• End with a call to action

Not all learning interventions are equal. Some are business critical, address the needs of large populations and have a shelf life of many years; others are aimed at smaller, more specialist audiences and may be required to meet a short-term business requirement; still more are confined to the very particular needs of individuals and small groups of employees, where information is required on-demand. These three types of interventions can be shown diagrammatically in the form of a pyramid (with thanks to Nick Shackleton-Jones):

High-end interventions demand the highest budgets and the attention of skilled professionals. They are the equivalent of the Hollywood blockbusters. The attention to detail and lengthy development schedules can be justified by the large numbers that will benefit from the end results. These are the exception, not the rule. Most needs cannot possibly justify this much effort and time.

Plan B is the rapid intervention, where the emphasis is on developing content that is good enough to do the job and no more. Plan C requires the help of more experiences or knowledgeable employees who help their peers by contributing the simplest of resources, often just text. So don’t over-engineer – match your production values to the requirement.

Secret 3: Employ willing helpers

The phrase ‘the long tail’ was first coined by Chris Anderson(2) in 2004 to describe the niche strategy of businesses, such as Amazon.com, which sell a large number of unique items in relatively small quantities. Whereas high-street bookshops are forced, by lack of shelf space, to concentrate on the most popular books, shown on the left of the chart below, retailers selling online can afford to service the minority interests shown below tailing off to the right. Interestingly, for a retailer such as Amazon, the volume of sales for minority titles exceeds that of the most popular; yet before the advent of online retailing these needs would have been very hard to service. 

The concept of the long tail can be applied as well to training needs as it can to sales of retail products; just substitute ‘training needs’ for ‘titles on sale’ and ‘target population’ for ‘copies sold’. However hard we try, as trainers we cannot hope to respond to the long tail through formal, top-down efforts. We can begin to address the middle reaches of the tail if we are prepared to delegate some of our responsibility for top-down interventions to generalist trainers and subject experts. In e-learning terms that means rapid development processes making use of rapid development tools.

At the far reaches of the tail, we have to rely on bottom-up approaches to meet the needs of small numbers. In a way this has always been the case – in the absence of any other help, an employee has never had any option but to ask for help from co-workers and supervisors, or at very least just to copy what they do. But l&d professionals can help the process along in a number of ways. First and foremost, they can ensure that employees are aware of their responsibilities as teachers as well as learners, and are cognisant of the most effective ways to pass on knowledge and skills. And where employees have access to the appropriate technology, they can make available tools that smooth the way for bottom-up learning; tools like forums, wikis and sites that enable employees to connect with experts and others with similar interests.

Good managers have always known that they cannot accomplish great things if they try to do everything themselves – they empower others and then encourage their efforts. Trainers who try to control all aspects of the training process and deny others the tools to make their own contributions, will never satisfy the needs of the long tail, and risk being bypassed in the rush to get things done in a fast-changing work environment.

Secret 4: Don’t over-rely on self-study

In a survey conducted in 2009 (3) of more than 2000 employees from eight different European countries, an overwhelming majority (87%) reported that they most liked to learn at their own pace. This should not be that surprising; after all, self-paced learning is highly flexible (you control when, where and how often) and low-stress (you are not pressured to keep up with the pace set by an instructor). This and other surveys have also shown that employees like to learn in small chunks (a sensible preference, because this is much more brain-friendly) and on-demand, i.e. without having to wait for a scheduled intervention. So self-study is more than just a tonic for the finance director; it works for learners too.  

But, of course, nothing is that simple. First of all, self-study is limited in its application, because it doesn’t address all learning requirements – in some cases the desired results simply cannot be achieved without interaction with experts, coaches and peers. Above all, self-study does not meet all of the needs of learners. However much learners want flexibility and control, they also want support, collaboration and community. They want access to real human beings so they can ask questions, share experiences and perspectives, benchmark their skills, and both give and receive encouragement.

Self-study does have an increasingly valuable role to play in learning interventions, but it cannot be relied upon as a stand-alone option. Blended solutions, like the induction programme shown below, may be more complex to administer, but they are more powerful and more likely to work.

Secret 5: Don’t get fixated on instruction

Many hundreds of years ago, Samuel Johnson advised us that “Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it.” His point is even more relevant . Robert E Kelley (4) asked the question “Do you believe that the retention of information in your head is important for you to do your job well?” In 1986, the answer was 75%; in 1997, 15-20%. His estimate for 2006 was 8-10%.

There is far too much to know and it is changing so quickly that it is almost impossible to keep up. When a person entered a career just fifty years ago, they would have expected to learn all aspects of their trade or profession in the first five years or so, and then to apply this for the rest of their lives. Today that prospect seems ludicrous.In a networked age, it is much more important to know where to look and who to ask than it is to hold vast amounts of knowledge in your head.

This idea has even spawned a completely new approach to learning called connectivism. Canadian George Siemens (5) perhaps the most influential figure in this new movement, explains how: “Instead of the individual having to evaluate and process every bit of information, she/he creates a personal network of trusted nodes: people and content, enhanced by technology. The act of knowledge is offloaded onto the network itself.”

This has proofound implications for the instructional designer because it implies that instruction is not always going to be the most appropriate solution. It will often be more effective to limit instruction to key concepts and core skills, and then provide reference materials that can accessed on a just-in-time basis, not through learning management systems but as everyday online information, supported by social networks operating within the firewall.

It will soon be time for instructional designers to look for a new name. The purposes of online content are now much more profound and the impact of the designer can be much greater, not operating from the elevated viewpoint of the ivory tower, but as a specialist in a world in which everyone is a teacher as well as a learner.  

Note from Editor

Clive Shepherd works with Towards Maturity as our Programme Director for our First and Next Steps workshops. This article came about from one of our workshops earlier this year (February 2010) when we were looking at different approaches to improving the take up and buy in of e-Learning in the workplace.  Towards Maturity benchmark research has shown that those organisations who are responding to these areas in instructional design are definitely reporting more benefit from their investment in learning technologies - however, our research has also shown that they still remain a secret to many which is why we wanted to bring this article to more readers.  If you are starting to make some of Clive's secrets work for you- we would love to hear from you!

References:

1 -  The curriculum for the 60-minute masters can be found at http://www.learning15.net/wiki/index.php?title=The_60-minute_masters. A free implementation of the course can be found at http://www.learning15.net. 

2-  The long tail: how endless choice is creating unlimited demand by Chris Anderson (Random House, 2004).

3-  Rethinking learning, a survey conducted in June 2009 for SkillSoft by OnePoll.

4- How to be a Star at Work: Nine Breakthrough Strategies You Need to Succeed by Robert E Kelley (Times Books, 1999).

5- Knowing Knowledge by George Siemens (Lulu, 2006).

The biggest survey of learning technologies in the voluntary sector ever undertaken has revealed some interesting findings. More than 80 charities – representing more than 50,000 staff and volunteers - took part in the survey, carried out by independent e-learning analysts Towards Maturity in partnership with the Charity Learning Consortium (CLC).  Findings revealed that:
 
Learning technologies are helping charities to deliver more for less:
The top four benefits of adopting learning technologies are: improving flexibility of learning; improving access to learning; cutting costs and increasing reach – important to organisations often relying on part time staff spread countrywide.
 
Moving forward, they are expecting even more from their investment:
Over 2/3 of participants are looking for their investment in learning technologies to help increase staff retention; to improve training quality; to increase the number of qualified staff; to enhance the induction process; to reduce time spent learning; and to improve administration efficiency.

There is tremendous enthusiasm to adopt new approaches to learning:
72% say their internal learning teams are willing to embrace change.

More than 60% are looking to increase their allocation of budget in this area:
With the emphasis behind investment being more about improving learning delivery and its impact, rather than just finding a ‘cheaper option’.

“In this study we wanted to see how innovatively charities are thinking about skills and the extent to which they are using technology to address the needs of staff and volunteers, particularly when budgets are stretched but demand for a wide range of skills continues to grow,” said Laura Overton, Managing Director of Towards Maturity.

Martin Baker, Managing Director of the CLC added: “We were particularly pleased to see that more than 30% of the charities that took part make e-learning available to directors and senior managers - when directors are using learning technologies, the overall business impact from e-learning investment is significantly higher. Leading through actions delivers results and we would expect those charities where directors are e-learners to benefit.”

Moving forward, there is certainly no lacking in participant’s enthusiasm and commitment to change. But with increased budget allocation comes increased expectation of results: “In order for future investment not to disappoint, charities should take the opportunity to learn from each other – as well as from practices in the private and public sector – and this is where I hope the CLC can help.” added Martin. (Photo of Martin Baker attached.)

John LeRossignol, Learning Resources Manager at RNLI, commented: “The personalised benchmark report we received has provided a framework for learning technology strategy and implementation that I keep coming back to – in essence it has helped me to define my objectives, highlighting areas where we can further develop a culture of learning within the RNLI.”

You can download the full report below:

Other highlights from the survey include: What’s hot and what’s not in learning technologies in the voluntary sector:

What’s hot:

• Electronic learning materials (75%+ of survey participants use)
• Web resources (65%+)
• Online surveys and questionnaires (65%+)
• Online administration (50%+)

What’s not:

• Video, games or virtual worlds (<7%)
• Blogging and chat (< 11%)
• Podcasting (<13)
• Rapid development tools (<15%)

Notes to editors:

Survey participants: 76% of participants were from larger organisations with 250+ staff (46% of these were from organisations with over 1,000 staff).  71% of the participants had staff spread over multiple sites: 18% were multinational and 53% national but with many locations to serve.

Contacts: PR contact Susie Finch, email: trainingsusie@btconnect.com Tel 01453 768855 Mobile 07986 095 403. You can also contact Wendy Stanley at the CLC on 08451 707702 or Laura Overton at Towards Maturity on 07831144265.

About the Charity Learning Consortium:

Formed in 2001 by six charities looking to share learning resources, the Charity Learning Consortium (CLC) now has more than 60 member organisations and continues to grow from strength to strength. The CLC provides members with a large portfolio of e-learning, offers networking opportunities and a place to discuss best practice in the voluntary sector. Members have access to an online networking tool; shared member resources and e-learning documentation. They may also be invited to attend quarterly member meetings (dependent on subscription level) to discuss developments, take part in free workshops and watch member presentations on their challenges and successes in implementing e-learning. Find out more at www.charitylearning.org

About report authors and Towards Maturity:

Towards Maturity, an independent not for profit organisation, provides ongoing research and resources to organisations looking to improve the way they use and provide learning technologies. More than 700 organisations have taken part in Towards Maturity Benchmark research over the past five years - now considered to be the most comprehensive independent review of the use of learning technologies in the workplace in the UK. The charity benchmark was authored by Laura Overton, Managing Director of Towards Maturity. With more than two decades of experience, Laura has contributed to initiatives with the European Commission, the UK’s Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and Becta. She is a Fellow of the Institute of IT training (IITT), a popular industry commentator and is the most recent recipient of the IITT’s Colin Corder Award for lifetime contribution to the learning industry. Fnd out more at www.towardsmaturity.org

Here’s a brief summary of the day:

Previously published on our website and featured in the e-learning Age magazine, Alison Innes-Farquhar presented the very compelling Care Management Group case study which won ‘The best e-learning project securing widespread adoption’ at the e-learning Awards 2009. Using the Towards Maturity model as the basis for their strategy, Alison described how they needed to make some significant changes in training provision and how e-learning has supported a dramatic turnaround in the organisation.

It’s important to recognise that this is a care-focussed working environment with low levels of PC literacy across their workforce of 1,500 staff who are mostly front-line carers and care workers. In Alison’s own words – “there were powerful drivers for e-learning but many barriers to adoption”.  She emphasised that stakeholder engagement was critically important and they held a workshop with the key stakeholders to outline their strategy and to gain support and endorsement. She explained the clear links between clear definition of need, alignment to the business, setting the learner and work context, securing engagement, building capacity and delivering value – the very essence of our work at Towards Maturity.
They established the brand ‘Fulfilling Potential’ which subsequently became part of the corporate brand, which is a great endorsement in itself! Launched initially through a multimedia presentation themed ‘Every Moment Has Potential’ the programme has been a resounding success with very high adoption rates. 99% of their staff has completed 12,800 modules of e-learning which represents 18,449 hours of learning all in the first year. And that’s in an organisation with poor IT infrastructure, low levels of PC literacy and a workforce of front-line carers. In fact in their own internal staff satisfaction survey undertaken in September 2009, training was the overwhelming winner when staff were asked ‘what’s the best thing that CMG have done’? Terrific achievement.

Dr Edward Hammond, a qualified anaesthetist who is involved in numerous projects and with various professional bodies, presented ‘e-learning for Anaesthesia’ (eLA) on behalf of e-learning for Health at the Department of Health. Edward is responsible for e-learning standards in the NHS. Anaesthesia is the largest medical speciality and it takes 14 years to be fully trained. This joint initiative between the Royal College of Anaesthetists and Department of Health won the gold award at the e-learning awards 2009 for ‘Best Online or Distance Learning Project’.

Edward stated that the Radiology Integrated Tool Initiative (known as R-ITI) was the catalyst for the Dept of Health to look to do more with e-learning. In fact you can learn more about the R-ITI project here. There are currently 57 different e-learning projects in the Dept of Health ranging from 2 hour to 2,000 hour sessions. This particular project for anaesthetists is in partnership with the professional body using proven technology. It is made freely available throughout the NHS and shared services.

The training is complex combining knowledge, skills and attitude. They’ve learnt of the need to understand differences at a ‘local’ level in order to provide training at a ‘national’ level, and of course e-learning consistently delivers content to an agreed national standard. In this particular programme the content takes two years to complete and is broken down into 7 blocks of competency in the overall curriculum. It was good to hear that ‘learning objects’ are alive and kicking as the content features 20-30 minute segments of learning.

In fact e-LA offers the following components as part of the blended solution:

• e-Learning Sessions – Over 1,000 knowledge and scenario based sessions covering the first two years of the anaesthetic curriculum. Each session takes around 20-30 minutes to complete.
• e-Library – free and direct access to thousands of full-text journal articles which have been cross-referenced and mapped to the anaesthetic curriculum.
• e-CPD – articles and associated MCQs to support general and core topic based continuing professional development for trainees and trainers.
• e-Assessment – formative assessments with feedback that will test the user’s understanding of the knowledge based sessions and introduce students to the standard expected at the FRCA exam.

They allocate approx 200 hours of learning per individual per year with e-learning being used as part of a blended programme. There are approx 400 different authors working on the project as they seek to move anaesthetists through the 3 stages of learning, comprehension and application. As Edward explained they want to ‘make the learning experience active rather than passive, interesting rather than dull’.

Evaluation data reveals that content is used by anaesthetists just before an exam and that constant feedback is invaluable. It’s the largest single subject e-learning project in the NHS and you can learn more at www.e-la.org.uk.

Next was one of the regular contributors to Towards Maturity, Lars Hyland of Brightwave who spoke about ‘Designing e-learning for Impact’. Lars focussed on creative and effective design and using the ‘IMPACT’ metaphor he demonstrated a number of excellent examples as follows:

• Interaction – PWC and IKEA (Missing Stock).
• Multimedia – BUPA (Virtual Call Centre) and SKY (Customer Care)
• Personal – O2 (Diversity & Equality) and Virgin (Manual Handling)
• Actionable – T-Mobile
• Challenging - SKY
• Timing
  

To liven up the normal ‘graveyard’ slot after lunch the ELN held its first Pecha Kucha session which seemed to go down very well. For those not familiar with PechaKucha it was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of "chit chat", it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It's a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace. The ELN persuaded four of its members to ‘have a go’! Claire Line of Lovells, Katherine Chapman of Capita National Strategies, Viv Cole from Redtray and Matt Brewer from Chubb who emerged as the winner! I think that grants Matt the dubious pleasure of having to do it all again!

Nick Shackleton-Jones of the BBC presented on a ‘New Framework for Learning Design’ which has been used in ‘Upfront’ a new online induction programme. What was fascinating about Nick’s session was how the focus is on encouraging people to care enough about changing behaviour, and that means that emotion is seen as being very important. After all in real life there are emotional outcomes to what is learnt so they seek to capture that passion in the learning.

Nick and his team use different presenters to help to connect with a wider and diverse audience in the BBC. He shared examples from their selection and interview process modules to show emotional context with strong authenticity. He also introduced the audience to what they call ‘tribes’ at the BBC – a term used to describe different audiences with different ways of learning. They adapt the e-learning for these different tribes in the organisation – this includes the creation of a series of A5 sized cards used for reference and to provide insight. These cards defer by tribe!

Finally Major Daisy Mundy from the British Army talked about ‘Operation Numerika’ a basic numeracy programme based on a Nintendo DS. She’s part of the Directorate of Training who follow a systemised approach to learning through needs analysis, design/development, delivery and evaluation. All soldiers have to complete level 1 numeracy and literacy within 3 years with literacy the priority.

Time is very precious for soldiers although they do have what she described as ‘dead time’ which is when they are often waiting for something to happen while on operations. This led them to consider portable devices and they selected the Nintendo DS as this would help to overcome the barriers and obstacles they faced.

They have a wide number of stakeholders and they worked with their commercial developer (Epic) to develop ‘Operation Numerika’. She stressed that over the years the army have learnt that ‘Context is King’! Apart from the Nintendo DS they are also looking at more flexible devices such as the Apple iTouch for more experienced soldiers.

So what can we learn from the event?
It’s the sheer diversity of audience, organisation and history with learning technologies that most struck me and what is being achieved.

Take Care Management Group where their staff rate the training as the best thing that CMG have done for them and that’s in an organisation with poor IT infrastructure, low levels of PC literacy and a workforce of front-line carers. ‘e-learning for Anaesthesia’ (eLA) is the largest single subject e-learning project in the NHS with structured content, assessment, qualification and reference material all part of the eLA online solution. Brightwave with their creative and effective design examples across diverse businesses. Nick Shackleton-Jones at the BBC and their focus on emotion and encouraging people to care enough about changing behaviour, and finally the British Army utilising mobile devices (Nintendo DS) to meet the needs for soldiers to achieve level 3 in numeracy.

There are always lessons to be learnt from those harnessing learning technologies and delivering value in their organisations. As a key partner of Towards Maturity the e-learning Network is a further source for guidance on best practice and future trends in technology-based learning and development at work. The eLN has more than 1500 members in the UK and beyond.

There have been some excellent reviews of the event that we'd recommend you take a look at. Buzz words to summarise the themes discussed upstairs in the conference and down on the exhibition floor include social learning,performance, mobile, games, innovation, recession, results,rapid, innovation, design,twitter and culture.

Check out the commentary: 

Congrats to Donald Taylor who did a great job in pulling the conference together. His reflections on the event - plus a link to a whole range of other reviews) can be found here. Jane Hart (together with Jay Cross) commented on the wide spectrum of understanding of social learning at the event, particularly for those where it was an untried experience - so still someway to go before we start to deliver in this area. Lars Hyland did a great summary. TrainingZone interviewed everyone they could get hold of. Clive Shepherd picked up on the great story of BT ( see below) and asked why doesn't the event use technology to engage more attendees?! You can also catch up with Learning Technologies news and gossip on Twitter at #LT10UK.

Top tips to take away

Whilst the networking is always great and it's good to spend time with like minded people who share your passions, the proof of a good conference is in what you take away and apply.

Here are some of the top tips that we picked up over the conference

Andy Jones from Thomson Reuters shared their model for developing content consisting of Subject Matter Experts (SME’s), Champions (who will ultimately deliver the learning) and e-learning consultants.

• TOP TIP for managing resources: Andy is finding it more economic in the long term to get the relevant team together in a workshop to thrash out what’s needed rather than making ad-hoc demands, especially on SME’s on an ongoing basis.

A Moodle based portal is at the heart of a centrally driven strategy with local ownership at the Ministry of Justice , hosting all training activity for 95,000 staff. The organisation wanted  to deliver greater flexibility in learning delivery to fit with busy work schedules

• TOP TIP for creating bite size learning - They’ve also created what they describe as ‘nudges’ of learning (2 minutes), ‘know-how’s’ (5 minutes) and finally courses.

David Spruzen from CMG shared their award winning story about how they overcame the challenges of implementing e-learning in an organisation with poor infrastructure, time poor staff, limited learning culture and also to engage an audience with learning disabilities.

• TOP TIP for the discouraged  - perseverance  - if CMG can do it ,anyone can!

In his own inimitable way Jonathan Kettleborough challenged L&D professionals to focus on the outputs and what really makes a difference in their organisation, while Nigel Harrison and Darrell Minards (Xerox) explained how really understanding the desired performance improvement meant that Xerox channelled their energy into the right long-term solution rather than simply ‘more training’. Darrell emphasised the need for a different set of skills for L&D professionals in developing virtual solutions.

• TOP TIP for embedding learning into busines culture - focus on performance improvement at the core - challenge the the why

Peter Butler shared BT's journey with social software to encourage staff collaboration and sharing - implementing Dare2Share in a conservative culture took planning and foresight but the results are paying off

• TOP TIP for relinquishing control - if you are implementing social learning, make sure that everyone understands their accountability and visibility of their contribution.

....to be continued!

It was originally created to provide a quick snapshot of the current e-learning landscape to help L&D professionals highlight the opportunties that new technologies. And it was made for sharing!

We have had some really interesting feedback on how people have been using the resource:

• This was first class: simple, and accessable. If I'm honest it provided me with the knowledge I should really have known! Thank you!
• I think it's a really good booklet for someone starting out.
• I have kept the booklet as a useful reference tool. Although I have not used it immediately, I know it is going to be very useful to use to give other people here an insight into what learning technologies can offer 
• I found this document very useful for researching e-learning. It really helped me to complete a CTP assignment. It also opened my mind to alternative solutions for the courses I design in future.

We would love to know what you thought of the booklet. How useful was it to you, your team and what else you would like to see it include in the future?

Please click here and tell us what you thought!

Towards Maturity  are really proud to support these awards as each category has been design to really promote excellence in the use of learning technologies for building skills and performance.  Though our partnership with the awards, we are able to bring our readers plenty of hints and tips from  previous winners and to share the secrets of their success.

You can read more about the 2009 elearning award winners here but if you have been inspired, why not give it a go?

The award categories are as follows:

• Meeting the needs of compliance for an external regulator or an internal workforce
• Best use of mobile learning
• The best use of rapid e-learning content
• The best use of synchronous e-learning
• The best online or distance learning programme
• The best learning game, simulation or virtual environment
• The best use of social media for learning (NEW for 2010)
• The most innovative new product or tool in e-learning
• The best e-learning project securing widespread adoption
• Excellence in the production of learning content - Not for Profit Sector
• Excellence in the production of learning content - Private Sector 
• Excellence in the production of learning content - Public Sector  
• E-learning internal project team of the year
• E-learning industry award for outstanding achievement - individual
• E-learning industry award for outstanding achievement - corporate

The judging criteria are clearly laid out ( thanks to the award Judging Partner - the eLearning Network) and you can check them out here.

You have plenty of time to get ready as the deadline for registration of entry is the 30 June 2010 ( with the deadline for submission of entry on the 30 July 2010).

If you need a helping hand, take a look at A judge's perspective on how to win awards! ( or download the article below!)

It’s that time of year when everyone seems to feel compelled to generate their list of ‘Top Ten Predictions’ for 2010 – or perhaps their Top Five or Top Seven! We didn’t want to feel left out so rather than compile another ‘Top Ten’ list we thought it might be fun to develop the ‘Definitive Top Ten’ list based on the thoughts and ramblings of many of those respected in the industry who are members of our ‘Community of Excellence’, sprinkled with some of our own insight.

Of course the beauty of this crystal ball gazing is that if you’re proved right at the end of the year then you clearly have an in-depth understanding and unrivalled insight into the world of learning technologies. If you’re wrong then you can simply blame social, economic and political factors that were unknown at the time you compiled your list – quite a handy ‘get out of jail’ card really!

Some of our colleagues have chosen to review their 2009 projections to see how close they were 12 months later. Others ‘played safe’ with predictions that most of us could make about operating in global markets, facing increased competition, the current economic climate and the political landscape etc so we’ll focus on those predictions that are perhaps a little more forward thinking and of particular relevance to learning & development.

At Towards Maturity, we like to think we keep our finger on the pulse, not just by keeping up with our colleagues but through our own research into what’s working and what’s not (via our implementation benchmarks) and the impact we are having on the organisations we work with (via our evidence for change programme and our latest Impact Indicator). 

So unsurprisingly we also have some thoughts of our own!

The Definitive List of Top Ten Predictions for 2010

Well it may not be ‘definitive’ but it’s ours!! It won’t surprise those of you who are well aware of the work of Towards Maturity that our list will include those things that we believe will and must happen in 2010 for L&D to be seen to be making an invaluable contribution to an organisations performance. In no particular order here’s our Top Ten Predictions for 2010:

• More focus on delivering business value ( and communicating that we do!) – ok, it may not be the most original thought but our most recent research with the Impact Indicator survey reveals that what managers look for in terms of the value and contribution of learning  is not what we’re giving them, and that’s assuming we’re giving them something! We will concentrate on aligning learning to business and ALSO improving the way we communicate our value back to managers.
  
• Web conferencing for live online sessions – already growing rapidly from our last benchmark study, we think this will become much more prevalent because many organisations already have licences for web conferencing services and will find it relatively straightforward to adapt. In effect the technology will continue to act as a bridge between pure self-study and classic classroom based training and will be a more comfortable option for traditional trainers to engage with.
  
• A continued rise in rapid e-learning solutions – Again one of the fastest growing technologies from our last benchmark, we believe the adoption of such solutions will continue at a pace and we’ll continue to see richer and more engaging tools becoming available. The economic argument for accelerated adoption is a strong one but in 2010 we should see more creative application of rapid content within our learning offerings for business (eg.to support internal communications, change, within the blend of leadership training and other talent management initiatives) and many L&D teams will feel happier that these tools are now firmly established in the mainstream.
  
• Increase in mobile learning – Mobile learning is back in vogue as a result of the new web enabled functionality that many carry around with them. Many of the others are predicting the rise of mobile learning this year as a result of new tools in  our hands – guess what - we agree!
  
• More flexible learning management platforms – We may just be witnessing the death of those large scale inflexible LMS’s we were all so excited about back in the 1990’s!! You don’t find many advocates these days so we think we’ll see far greater use of open source systems that allow you to add applications according to your needs, especially with Moodle which is rapidly establishing a mainstream audience.
  
• Frameworks for Social Learning – social learning is on almost everyone’s target list right now and for good reason. We’ve been debating it for the last 2 years and finally we will see organisations embrace the 70/20/10 rule. But to get the most benefit organisations will need to bring in more context so that busy professionals can ‘get it’ faster - we believe that we’ll see more frameworks for implementing social learning so that it starts to make sense for traditional businesses. (We've case studies on site, such as B/T’s ‘Dare2Share’ and IBM , that provide good examples of this).
  
• Scenario based learning – we’re all familiar with the use of simulations from their use in IT systems, office desktop applications and product training to soft skills, but we are going to see the emergence of more scenario based simulations such as those used in supporting the training of airline pilots and emergency services personnel.
  
• More focus on building L&D skills - we will see the continued growth in the use of informal learning communities for L&D and more learning resources and events for L&D will appear. Trainers will be more interested in increasing their basic awareness of technology opportunities and will need to know how to integrate it effectively into solution design. There will also be more focus on building strategic skills of implementation & engagement so that the terrible e-learning mistakes of the past are not repeated.
  
• L&D will become more demanding – of ourselves and of our suppliers. The economic climate and the need to innovate & make a difference means that we will no longer just commission a simple e-learning course (or classroom course for that matter) because that is what we have always done. Instead we will ask more questions about what are we trying to achieve for the business and what is the most appropriate way to achieve it. This puts ‘performance’ at the core of what we are doing as we move out of our comfort zone. Whereas learning technologies have only been used to support induction or compliance learning, L&D will recognised the need to be seen to be adding real business value (but with fewer resources) so we will see more turn to innovative applications of technology to address strategic business needs such as leadership, talent management, customer service and organisational change.
  
• More political will to see change in learning provision from the public purse - The last is as much a hope as a prediction but we would love to see a shift in policy to influence how our skills qualifications are delivered – moving from the 19th to 21st century delivery. With all political parties talking about a focus on skills as a key contributor to economic growth and the opportunities that a digital Britain can provide, we’d love to see our colleges and universities being encouraged to innovate!

We've summarised some of the other predictions and top tips from our community of excellence colleagues in the download below - looks like we are in for a great year !

It's not every day that a member of the Towards Maturity team wins a top award at the IT Training Awards, so we are very proud to announce that Laura Overton won the coveted Colin Corder award for her outstanding contribution to IT Training at the IT Training Awards 2010 held at The Dorchester Hotel on Thursday 4th February.

In announcing the award Colin Steed, Chief Executive at the Institute of IT Training said that: "Laura has been an influential voice in the IT training industry for many years, and this award recognises her outstanding work, achievement, and contribution to advancing the training profession. She is a tremendous ambassador for the training profession and for over 20 years Laura has helped organisations make the most of their use of workplace learning technologies, as well as working with government bodies and initiatives in the skills field to help them be as successful as possible. Co-author of a significant study into effective e-learning practices in the workplace, published by e-skills UK in February 2007, Laura is a very popular and well-respected industry commentator, and is a popular and much read writer in all the leading training journals".

Laura works tirelessly on behalf of all of those involved in using learning technologies in the workplace to deliver value. Her passion is for learning and seeing it directly contribute to organisational performance. The alignment of learning, through the use of learning technologies, to key business objectives is something that she has championed for many years. Her boundless energy, enthusiasm and tenacity is something that we've come to expect at Towards Maturity but it is particularly gratifying to see her efforts recognised by winning this prestigious award.

On behalf of all of those who subscribe to Towards Maturity in support of our key aims and goals, we would like to offer our sincere congratulations to Laura on this achievement.

We'd also like to recognise all the other award winners and congratulate them on their achievements. You can find details of all the other award winners via a Training Press Release here.

• Why do I need to do this? 
• Why am I learning online rather than in a classroom? 
• Once I’ve completed my learning, now what?

You can read more on this thought provoking piece by clicking on the link below.

New partnership to provide L&D departments with resources and toolkits to improve the impact of learning technologies in large organisations was announced at Learning Technologies 2010 today.

Towards Maturity and Elearnity have created a strategic partnership to combine resources and capabilities to accelerate the transformation of large organisations through more effective application of learning technologies.

Large organisations in the private and public sector are under significant pressure to rapidly up-skill new and existing staff, and respond to business demands faster with fewer. Many are turning to learning technologies as part of the answer but have had poor experiences and low take-up. Complex, multisite organisations with multiple decision makers and stakeholders often struggle to leverage the full opportunities that learning technologies can offer.

Over many years, Towards Maturity and Elearnity have built up resources and independent research to identify the activities that influence success in large organisations.

Towards Maturity has focussed on developing a unique e-learning benchmark. The Towards Maturity Model of effective learning technology implementation has been developed as a result of independent research, benchmarking 700 organisations over the past five years. The model identifies six strands of implementation behaviour that consistently deliver more business impact, more staff engagement and more take-up of new learning methods at work.

Elearnity, Europe’s leading Learning Analyst, has been independently researching and analysing the corporate use of learning technologies and other areas of learning innovation since 1996. Based on its extensive research, Elearnity has developed a detailed understanding of corporate learning technology strategies and realities together with an extensive range of supporting analysis and decision tools, independent vendor assessments, and other research materials.

The new partnership will combine capabilities to provide workshops, independent advisory services, toolkits and resources specifically to address the learning technology challenges faced by larger organisations in the public and private sector.

 ”In 2010, Organisations are taking a closer look at what learning needs to deliver to rapidly changing businesses, and learning innovation needs to accelerate” said David Wilson, Managing Director of Elearnity. “This partnership will help us to support our clients more effectively with the addition of Toward Maturity’s e-learning benchmark capabilities as well as extending the reach of Elearnity’s independent learning technology research and know-how to a broader audience.”

We are thrilled to be working with Elearnity, large organisations face two main barriers to implementing change – reluctance of staff to change and lack of skills of L&D to take advantage of what technology can offer. Through this partnership we can offer independent, practical support for organisations, grounded in years of research and analysis of the corporate market to help them step up to the challenge.

About Elearnity
Elearnity is Europe’s leading independent Learning Analyst providing independent expert research, analysis and advice on corporate learning, e-learning and learning technologies.  Elearnity provides expert independent advice to help organisations accelerate and de-risk their corporate learning innovations. Clients include: Aviva, B&Q, Boots the Chemist, BP, BT, Cable & Wireless, Coca-Cola Enterprises Europe, HSBC, KPMG, Marks & Spencer, Marsh, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Rolls-Royce, Royal Bank of Scotland, RSA Group, Unilever and Vodafone.
For more information on Elearnity research and services see:
www.elearnity.com

First Steps and Next Steps workshops will address e-learning skills gap in the UK

Independent research by Towards Maturity in 2009 clearly identified the extent to which a lack of awareness and skills among the learning and development community is holding back growth in the use of new learning technologies. In the current tough economic climate, UK organisations are looking for learning interventions which can address needs quickly, flexibly and effectively. Only by using new learning technologies can these demands be met.

The free resources and research on this site have been developed to help organisations on their journey with e-learning but over the past 12 months, we have had a number of enquiries for help in applying the lessons learned. As a result, we have teamed up with Clive Shepherd to create 2 interactive workshops.

The first two workshops support organisations on their journey with learning technologies, focusing on tangible business outputs. They draw on Towards Maturity’s strong research base and established Towards Maturity Model for improving the impact of e-learning in the workplace.

First steps - increasing awareness of the whole L&D team 

The First Steps workshop is aimed at raising the awareness of the whole L&D team. It explains what e-learning now has to offer, the benefits that UK organisations are reporting, and the skills that trainers will need in order to engage productively with the new learning technologies. It builds on the highly-successful booklet, What every l&d professional needs to know about e-learning, published in 2009.

Next Steps Workshop - building and effective e-learning strategy 

The Next Steps workshop is a blended solution aimed at the supporting the development of an effective learning strategy and engaging the key stakeholders with change. Using the Towards Maturity  model as a framework, this workshop helps organisations to identify a practical action plan to ensure that their investment in learning technologies delivers results, avoids costly mistakes and realises the full potential of learning technologies.

The aim is to provide independent advice on how to move forward with learning technologies, based on sound experience rather than abstract theories or over-hyped new fads. These workshops will play a key role in meeting this need and accelerate progress at a time when organisations are having to respond to unprecedented pressures.

Clive explains what drove their design: “These workshops are intended to be run primarily on an in-company basis and, as such, they are highly-customised change interventions rather than training courses, modelling the best in collaborative learning and working. They will work best when all key stakeholders participate fully and experience for themselves how learning technologies can improve the way that they learn and work together.”

Accellerating stakeholder engagement

Lincolnshire County Council were among the first to introduce the Next Steps Workshop to support the development of their ‘New ways of learning’ strategy. Over 40 stakeholders were involved in the programme to contribute to the strategy moving forward. Andy Brookes, Head of Organisational Change at Lincolnshire County Council says ‘Working with Towards Maturity really kick started our ‘New Ways of Learning strategy’. The Towards Maturity Model was a proven framework that would move our strategy forward and the supporting workshop has helped accelerate stakeholder engagement and buy in. We achieved in a 6 week blended programme what would have taken us 6-9 months without Towards Maturity’s support.’

Special offer

To celebrate the launch of the new workshops, Towards Maturity Enterprises are offering a 20% discount for the first 10 workshops booked by 31st March 2010.

The full press release is below, together with a case study about the work with Lincolnshire County Council.

You can also find out about Towards Maturity Enterprises and how this work supports the ongoing activity of this site at www.towardsmaturityenterprises.com. 

Free seminars - Supporting workplace priorities with e-learning – compelling evidence to think again

If you are looking for information that goes beyond the hype  to provide you with a solid evidence base grounded in  reality, then don’t miss these free seminars launching the results of 2 independent pieces of research conducted by Towards Maturity in support of Next Generation Learning in the workplace.

• Day 1 Wednesday 27th January, Theatre 4,  first floor 16 – 16.30hrs

Launch of the Towards Maturity Impact Indicator - 195 of you participated in the Towards Maturity Impact Indicator research at the end of last year providing insights into the impact that learning technology is having in the real world. The winners of the place on the ROI Institute course will be announced at this seminar.

• Day 2 Thursday 28th January, Theatre 7, ground floor, 13.30 – 14.00hrs
  

Delivering Results is a new study , commissioned by Becta, to review the existing evidence of learning technology impact in the workplace. In this session you will see how it identifies 8 business priority areas where learning technology is having an impact and provides links to a 48 case studies plus a range of resources and research all in one simple paper.

All attendees will have a free paper summarising the evidence to take away to help support your business case back at work and help you influence wary  stakeholders.

Free seminar – What every Learning and Development professional needs to know about e-learning

•  Day 1 - Wednesday 27th January , Theatre 8, ground floor, 13.30 – 14.00hrs

If you enjoyed the download of the booklet, then come and meet the authors– Clive Shepherd will be joining Laura Overton to look at some of the opportunities that technology provides for L&D staff – bring your colleagues, especially those who are sceptical.  Free print versions of the booklet will be available for all attendees while stocks last!

Free seminar - Delivering more together –quality skills provision on a voluntary sector budget

•  Day 2 - Thursday 28th January 2010, Theatre 8 (ground floor) 12.45 - 13.15
  

For all those working in the charity and voluntary sector this session  will look at the results of Towards Maturity’s benchmark with the sector last year, in conjunction with the Charity Learning Consortium. We will be looking at practical ideas to share resources and make budgets go further. (Also take a look at the award winning case study at Plan below)

Free coffee and free resources to take away at the Towards Maturity Stand – number 125

As usual you can find the TM team on the first floor, in our networking area on stand 125 (near the exhibition seminar theatres). Bring a copy of this newsletter and we’ll swap it for a free coffee!  Towards Maturity Enterprises  will also be launching some new workshops  developed in partnership with Clive Shepherd for those who need a bit of extra support in their journey with learning technologies.

A chance to hear from many of TM’s Community of Excellence.

Many of our community of excellence are also speaking at the event, here are just a few highlights!

On Day 1 -  Wednesday 27th

• The Mobile debate  Epic will be extending the popular e-learning debate from September this year to mobiles  - do smart phones mean smarter learning? (11.30)
• Social learning; all talk and no action?  from Saffron (11.30)
• See a course built live in 15 minutes from Atlantic Link (11.30)
• Building a commercial e-learning offering from the ground up Information Transfer (13.00 hrs)
• Video fear (and how to get over it!)  - Brightwave - (14.30)
• Effective training for Nikon Dealers - Kineo (13.45)
• Organisational learning - new technologies for a new world  -Thirdforce (13.45)
• Web 2.0 – what is it good for? - Infinity Learning ( 15.15) 

Day 2 – Thursday 28th

• The learning and skills trilogy – models for reaching learners, building value  e2Train ( 11.45)
• Award winning case study at Plan  - featured on this site but now meet the man himself!(11.45)
•  Being Realistic: affordable and effective scenario strategies Line Communications 12.45
• Knowledge transfer on the move – great new case study from Black &Decker (14.00)
• Beyond the hocus pocus: - new technologies are affecting corporate learning – element K (14.00)
• How to teach the world - Gatlin (14.45)
• Bridging the e-learning skills gap  - Clive Shepherd, e-Learning Network (15.30)

Avoid the queues - register for free today

The strap line of the conference was: The power of lifelong learning; innovation during a recession recovery?

Sir David Melville (Chair of Lifelong Learning UK) set the scene on the short-term future for learning and development professionals.  “When we emerge from the recession the nature of jobs and the skills needed will be different”, was his opening statement.  We lag significantly behind our European partners in qualifications and in skills. The UK workforce has to compete against an increasingly competitive and mobile Global workforce.  Those currently in work also face competition from new entrants with radically different digital skills. Those entering post-compulsory education now have been immersed in a digital environment; in 2009 60% of 13 year-olds have a web presence, in 2007 it was 60% of 16 year olds.

Young people are used to presenting themselves to others through a digital medium.  Those beginning skills training today will enter a very different technological world.  Those of us who train and educate this generation “Y” in the workplace need to understand their very different view of the digital environment; different to the majority of those currently in work today.

Will Hutton, the Executive Vice-Chairman of the Work foundation, followed this with a hard-hitting punchy presentation on the dire situation in which the UK finds itself as we struggle to emerge from the current recession.  For the last 20 years the finance sector has been the engine room of the UK economy.  We cannot afford for its growth to continue after the recession. You could hear a pin drop in the auditorium as he stated that if we allowed it to do so then in the next recession, which will come, Britain would be truly crippled by a financial disaster.  He backed this assertion up with solid clearly presented facts.

The solution is to expand the rest of the economy. This has to be skills based; in many cases skills we do not yet understand we need.  We have to earn our living as knowledge workers; by 2020 52% of us.  The UK has to make a living from the innovation and application of new technologies. We must have skills to develop techniques and technologies that are at the moment only dreamt of.  The challenge for the learning and development professional is to enable this skill development right across the board at all levels.

The theme on having to respond differently was continued by Stephen Uden, the Head of Skills and Economic Affairs at Microsoft.  He compared the learning investment made in the current workforce, the average is £1K per employee per year, in the IT sector (predominantly knowledge workers) the average investment is £2½ K The hill to climb in developing skills is massive. 

Forty percent of employers, many of whom are small companies, are concerned about the literacy and numeracy of their workforce (CBI/Anglia Nord Skill Survey).  Innovative small firms will largely fuel the recovery.  Traditionally it is very difficult to connect small employers with learning and development activity, whether it is funded or not; when they do invest the funded sector takes third place in employer investment.

Eighty-two percent of employers prioritise the employability skills of under-graduates.  The essential apprenticeship level training tends to be overlooked.  The result is that the percentage of the UK workforce employed at the technician level is 10%, against a European average of 20%.  The apprenticeship programme for Microsoft seeks to engage small employers.  This highly successful programme takes seven months to create skilled technical people (most of whom did less well at school than they should have done).

The choices are quite stark, the solution is to ramp up skills provision across the board, particularly for those in work. Technology has a key part to play in the future of learning.

Read more about the conference on the website or download the summary document

For the first time, the extensive agenda (over 400 speakers!) reflected a specific strand of sessions dedicated to workplace innovation and business results. This not only  appealed to the increasing number of delegates from private and public sector organisations, but also provided useful insights for academic institutions looking to engage the workplace better.

Naturally the Towards Maturity team were there  hunting out excellent case studies across Europe to include in our Evidence for Change programme in our quest to help readers  build the business case for learning technology. And we weren’t disappointed! Innovative use of technology to address real business problems, practical hints and tips and tangible business results flowed throughout the 2 days – it was hard to keep up!

Here are just a few examples about how technologies are helping to to break down the walls to deliver real results.

Breaking down the walls between experts and Learners to improve business processes.

When an  organisations are operating in far flung places across the globe, it is easy for some to miss out on training even when the processes and systems that they need to know about are business critical.

Nick Czinczoll, BP UK,  described some of their new approaches to blended learning to address this issue. They have established a virtual community of practice for specific area of expertise within the company such as . Each programme is comprised of a range of components - e Learning and self study, on-line classes, online collaboration and work assignments which have proven very powerful and required little effort. This has allowed them to  undertake this activity anywhere free from the constraints of a physical location as well as connecting experts (not teachers) to learners and connecting peers to each other.

As a result of this approach they have significantly reduced training costs whilst increasing learning opportunities for staff.

Breaking down walls between employees to increase sales in finance

The well quoted notion that 80% of learning is informal may ring true but addressing this issue is probably harder in the highly regulated finance world. However Francesc Fabregas, GEC, Spain and Gerard Velez from the Spanish bank La Caixa begged to differ. they introduced an informal learning environment to encourage exchange of ideas between employees  which has been used in a variety of ways to address staff concerns, communicate ideas and improve sales. For example they used the forum (with access for all staff ) to carry out a brainstorm to improve sales opportunities which resulted in over 100 suggestions and ideas which were then analysed by the ‘experts’ in the community . The focused results document was shared with 6000 staff who then applied it in their jobs. As one manager commented ‘The exchange of ideas on the part our employees strongly impacted the sale of products. The sales ratio increased from 2 products to 6 per employee after performing the action”.

Breaking down the walls between competency management and learning

Large global consultancy companies, like many of us, are under increasing pressure at the moment  to provide faster, cheaper, better solutions  to their staff. However given that their product is the intellectual capital – staff competency becomes competitive advantage and is critical to for them to manage. Nick Van Dam from Deloitte, spoke about how this has changed the way that learning and development is delivered to their 170,000 employees spread across the globe.  The company operates a rigid performance management system  to ensue staff have the required competency to meet client expectations.  Their twin approach between formal and informal, on demand  learning led them to build their on- line capability. As  part of the change they introduced a new online competency model and mapped  e content onto the competency themes.

This change was accompanied by a move to self service infrastructure based upon individual career and personal development plans which are also linked to the performance management system.
This change  was very transparent to managers and staff and all can see what is available which increased staff motivation.

Interestingly Deloitte are also breaking down walls between clients and staff via a newly  launched  Leadership Academy, a portal providing blended content and social networking for collaboration internally and externally (100+ clients involved).

Breaking down the walls in retail training

However not every retail professional has access to mobile phones in the workplace. Olaf Bursian, From Real (the german supermarket leader) described some pilots taking place at their flagship Future store  - SB Warenhaus. The future store has been designed to take full advantage of technology across all business process. They wanted to  look at approaches that would bring learning closer to staff. What devices in store can they use that have small pcs  embedded in them that could help?  They decided to work with weighing s scales and  info terminals for customers rather than the till systems ( cashiers learning at the till  would only cause queues!). Using the devices that are so near to the floor  allowed a faster transfer from learning to work.  The customer can also be easily be supported eg whilst weighing cheese , staff have access to more information to support the customer with additional information and hopefully drive more sales!  Their challenge in this approach was one of technology - how to get content to scales, how to address browser issues etc. One interesting feature was the inclusion of a panic button within the content so that the device moved quickly from the learning package back to being a scale again!

Breaking down the walls for new staff

Getting new staff up to speed quickly with products and services in order to help them deliver excellent customer services is a challenge for many and the walls that face new employees can result in them leaving quickly if you don’t get it right. Kenny Henderson of Sky UK ( who will also be speaking at Learning Technologies in January) outlined how they established a  new joiner’s portal to address  induction program training which staff can access prior to joining the company. The effect of this approach on the reduction in attrition, increase in sales and speed to competency all highlight how the effective use of learning technologies can really impact business.
Breaking down walls in 2010.

These walls have not come down by accident but by design- careful alignment to business need, appropriate use of technology to address business related learning issues and careful engagement have all contributed to the results.

These are just a few highlights, we will be following up Kenny’s story and many of the others not covered here both in this magazine and also on site at www.towardsmaturity.org. 
If Online Educa Berlin is anything to go by – I look forward to more walls being torn down in 2010 and hope that our evidence for change programme helps put  some weight behind your efforts!

Creating, delivering and using Learning Technologies requires a different skill set. Project management skills are needed. Trainers must acquire these skills to control costs, deliver on time and achieve objectives.

Here are ten top tips for Project Management?
 

1. Outputs
The focus is on hitting milestones and the results of tasks rather than the tasks themselves. A project plan identifies these milestones and gets commitment from those responsible for achieving them. The download in this section from Saffron Interactive describes milestone management in more detail.

2. Evaluation
Trainers are well accustomed to using summative and formative evaluation techniques in the context of what learners learn and changes in their behaviour. Project Management also requires evaluation of the project objectives. These will include time, cost, uptake, involvement of managers, business benefit and a number of other factors which are defined in the project objectives and the critical success factors. There is a difference between objectives of the project and the objectives of the learning. A Project Implementation Review (See Download for how it is done) checks the achievement of these Critical Success Factors; what could have been done better and what was done well. 

3. Terms of Reference
One of the essential tools of a project manager is to have unambiguous terms of reference. Trainers apply a systemic approach to development of training using Instructional System Design Principles. This requires a initial training needs analysis but terms of reference are different;; they are written and agreed between the project manager and the project sponsor before anyone else is involved. This is why those who manage projects that deliver learning must understand the issues and complexity of effective and efficient learning; they must be trainers first and project managers second.

Terms of Reference can take many forms depending on the methodology used. As a trainer the one I have found most useful is the BOSCARDIC approach. The download in this section from Training Journal on Tools of Project Management describes this in more detail.

4. Stakeholder management
Traditional training takes place under the control of trainers; usually in classrooms, e-learning takes place in the workplace under the control of line managers. This applies almost irrespective of the type of technology implemented. If line managers are not part of the process they become part of the problem. Line Managers follow the lead of Directors and senior executives. Senior Executives need to feel that Learning Technologies are invested in to meet their needs. Projects exist to deliver objectives determined by the business. e-Learning projects must also meet the needs of learners, so that they in turn have the skills needed by the business.

The Project Manager has to meet the needs of both.

The article on Project Management for Training points out the role of a Senior Executive or Managing Director. They own the project and will gain the benefit from it but only if they set out to do so.

5. Steering Group
A steering Group to whom the project managers reports is an effective way of managing stakeholders. It ensures a dialogue between trainers and the business. With the right membership the group will engage all parts of the business, ensuring smooth implementation of training.
 

6. Communication Strategy
Learning Technologies do not promote themselves. Learners may find out what is available by accident but marketing of Learning Technologies can hardly be left to chance. Every successful project has a communication strategy aimed at getting benefit from it; in the case of learning that means getting it used and implemented. Our research in Driving Business Benefit shows that for eLearning at least three different methods of communication must be used.

7. Line Managers
Because e-learning moves out of the classroom into the workplace managers have a role in consolidating learning in the workplace. The job of the e-Learning Project Manager extends beyond simply delivering the learning; they must influence line managers to do their job of developing their teams using the support of Learning Technologies.

8. Change Management
Resistance may be expected when any change is introduced. Learning Technologies create change in two ways

i)  A new method of training is introduced disturbing those responsible for delivering it as well as the learners
ii) Learning itself implies an expectation that a learner will change their behaviour; the need for that change may to be “sold” to the learner.

The project process of change management addresses the resistance that may be expected from many of those who need to be fully behind responding to the changes needed.

9. Project Phases
There is a clear progression from launch to delivery of projects. This requires a different mind-set to routine delivery of courses. A project manager needs to stay focused on delivering the end result through the various phases.

10. Quality, Time and Cost
Because a project has many variables and has frequent problems and pitfalls a project manager has to constantly trade off one issue against another. The three key trades are time, cost and quality (or specification). The critical word to use in these trades is “IF”.  If I have to save £X from the budget then the project will take longer, or less is done. Managing this triangle is a key skill and a Project Manager must be adept at negotiating.

The following downloads talk more about Milestone Management, (from Saffron Interactive) Project Management of Training, the Tools of Project Management,  and Project Implementation Review (all courtesy of Training Journal).

At a recent UK conference, an informal poll of learning and development professionals showed that whilst almost 50% of people had heard of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs), only 3% had actually used one.  PLEs are common place in academia, but in the UK workplace the take-up is not great.  According to Brandon Hall , 2009 would see five main trends in learning:

• Mobile learning
• DIY learning
• Flexible learning environments
• Virtual worlds
• Games and simulations

PLEs have been said to realise all these developments in learning and bring about radical changes to the way in which learning takes place.  This article looks at the importance of continuous, informal and social learning and considers how PLEs can meet the needs of 21st century learners.  It considers what PLEs are, and what are the benefits and drawbacks of using them. 

What is a PLE?

In describing PLEs it is useful to dispel a few myths, and consider what they are not.  In particular, PLEs are not specific software applications, nor or they systems for creating or delivering e-learning content.  Learning Management Systems and Content Management Systems are not PLEs, and in the strictest sense, neither is a Virtual Learning Environment.

A PLE is a concept based on Web 2.0 technology.  It is a browser-based collection of tools and systems which create an environment where learners access information from a variety of sources.  The main point of PLEs are that they are personal – they are learner-centric and can be whatever the learner wants them to be.

PLEs are based on the idea that most learning takes place informally, in different contexts and scenarios, and that content is not provided by one single provider.  They create an environment where learners can access, aggregate, configure and manipulate digital artefacts of their ongoing learning experiences.  With PLEs, learners can control and manage their own learning, setting their own learning goals and managing both the content and process.  Importantly, they can communicate with others whilst they learn – sharing experiences and collaborating on projects.

PLE elements

 PLEs are made up of a number of different elements (known as widgets) including:

• Production tools – allowing learners to develop their own content eg via a blog or wiki
• Collaboration and sharing tools – allowing learners to share their content with others, and to work with others on projects or assignments
• Communication – allowing learners to communicate via a variety of media such as instant messaging, video-conferencing or email
• Storage tools  - allowing learners to store their own content, preferences
• Aggregating content- allowing learners to access a variety of information relating to a particular topic (eg news items)
• Aggregating people – allowing learners to join together via social networking sites
• Aggregating software – allowing learners to mash-up (or join together) various elements into one place
• Identity management – allowing learners safe, easy and quick ways of logging in to websites
• APIs and protocols – these are key requirements for PLEs to grow as a concept. Rather than locking learners into a particular platform, where content is confined to a space owned by an organisation, the learning can be in a platform under the control of the learner

Many of these elements are available free-of-charge and are easily accessible on the web and straight-forward to use.  The following picture is an illustration of some of the more familiar elements that could make up a PLE.

Benefits and drawbacks of PLEs

Using a PLE brings many benefits to the learner, including the ability to:

• Create a repository of material about a particular subject matter
• Communicate and collaborate
• Organise material in a way that is personal to you
• Learn formally and informally
• Learn at a time and place to suit you
• Learn throughout your life
• Use whatever tools and devices you want (eg mobile phone, PS3, Wii)
• Interact with friends and wider communities
• Explore a subject in an informal manner
• Reflect on your learning
• Submit work for assessment and review

However, there are drawbacks.  The sheer number of tools available may be overwhelming.  Their use is very much dependent on the learner’s computer and information literacy and their propensity to use technology to enhance their learning.  Different pedagogical viewpoints exist and it is essential to reconcile the structured nature of formal education with the informal attributes of networked learning.  For some people access to technology and software may be limited and there are data privacy and security issues which need to be overcome.

Whilst PLEs are used frequently in compulsory education, FE and HE sectors, their take-up within the workplace is limited.  Organisations may be reluctant to give employees carte-blanche use of the internet in order to access facebook and YouTube.  A cultural shift is needed, both within Learning and Development teams and IT departments to create the environment in which informal learning via the internet can take place and is acceptable.

From a pedagogical viewpoint there is a debate as to the responsiveness and intuitive nature of PLEs.  To what extent do they appeal to individual learning styles, or is it a case of one-size-fits-all?

The ROLE project

The ROLE  project is a European-wide project that is addressing the responsive and intuitive element of PLEs and building an environment which is both responsive and open.  Responsive Open Learning Environments (ROLEs) will empower the learner to build their own responsive learning environment – an environment which is aware of the learner’s preferred learning process and that reflects this back via individually-adapted content and elements.

The ROLE project is a consortium of 16 European organisations – and represented in the UK by the British Institute for Learning and Development and the Open University.  To find out more about the project visit the website http://www.role-project.eu where you can register for updates, join the debate about the future of technology enhanced learning, and help shape the future of responsive learning environments.

Article contributed by Karen Velasco

Deputy Chairman, the British Institute of Learning and Development and Managing Director, PeopleSolve Ltd.

This was the 5th year and Clive Snell, (MD of Bizmedia who are the driving force behind the awards)  outlined that the event was the biggest yet with a bumper crop of entrants of exceptional standard.  The event also saw the launch of e-Learning Age's Bringing Business Benefits Campaign, which will be supported by our own Evidence for Change programmme to highlight where e-learning is making a real difference to business - judging by last night ,neither of us will be short of excellent examples!

The Towards Maturity team congratulate everyone who walked away with an award last night and commend everyone shortlisted. Well done!

In total 35 entrants walked away with awards - here are the winners ( with comments from the judges citations)

Most Innovative New Product or Tool in E-learning

All that students learning a foreign language require with Learnosity Voice is a mobile phone and a computer. Practicing their conversation using the mobile phone,students feel empowered and more engaged in the classroom & gain a level of confidence that impresses teachers.  Click here  to see the system in action in Ireland.

• Silver winner- Caspian Learning for Thinking Worlds

Caspian Learning’s Thinking Worlds – puts educationalists rather than programmers at the heart of the authoring immersive 3D simulations - Click here for demos.

SuperConnie’s forMath program allows detailed, individualised diagnosis and feedback that tracks how users arrive at an answer as well as the answer itself.. Click here for more information.

Excellence in the Production of Learning Content - Private Sector

• Gold winner- E-FLI

E-FLI is the world’s only e-learning platform for skydiving.Its unique and highly creative approach includes a comprehensive range of 3D animations to illustrate clearly what is required of the student during the skydive, where communication between instructor and student is very limited. Click here  for a demo

• Silver winner- LINE Communications and Ford of Europe

A project  to train and communicate with Ford’s European car dealership network,  delivering top-level messages appropriate to all Ford’s European markets as well as all new vehicle launches and information for new salespeople. The project had more than 90% take-up by Ford’s 20,000 dealer sales consultants in 21 European markets – an exceptional business result. Find out more

• Bronze winner-  Legal & General

By moving from the classroom to a commendably creative e-learning solution to raise fraud awareness among its employees, Legal & General has saved over £1m in classroom costs and reduced the risk to the business. The company’s e-learning team seized this opportunity to break away from traditional templated, text-heavy e-learning with both hands, producing content that engages learners, encourages culture change and provides business benefits.

Excellence in the Production of Learning Content - Public Sector

The Upfront project has improved the effectiveness of induction at the BBC, giving new staff a sense of the organisation and its culture quickly, and reducing face to face events from three days to two (saving well over £600k in the process). Its excellent use of great resources and highly creative approach to design wowed the judges.  

The aim of this project was to improve the numeracy and literacy of children in a fun way. Exciting and appealing to small children, it is also challenging and engaging enough for parents to want to sit down and play it with their child. The learning also gives parents an option to follow up on their own numeracy and literacy by doing one of the many other learndirect programmes available – experience it at by clicking here.

Excellence in the Production of Learning Content - Not for profit Sector

St George’s Taste Of Medicine tool is free, interactive, educational and engaging web portal targeted at secondary school students aged 12 and upwards to dispel the myths that medicine is an elitist profession.. The judges liked the demonstration of shifts in learner attitudes and data linked backed to original goals. Experience it for yourself here.

• Silver winner- Family Planning Association and Aurion Learning

A groundbreaking sexual health and well-being eLearning programme designed for people with learning disabilities.

A creative mix of media and sensitive handling of the subject - Dignity in nursing- made this programme the most popular module on the RCN Learning Zone.

Meeting the Needs of Compliance for an External Regulator or an Internal Workforce

RBS has maximised efficiency, acceptance and alignment through the use of a single module for its training on recording and resolving customer complaints. The module takes into account the disparate global user group and has separate learning paths to direct staff to elements relating specifically to their roles. Dispensing with the one-size-fits-all approach allowed learners to focus on learning relevant to them, typically halving the time taken for completion.

With environmental management accreditation increasingly important if AXA PPP Healthcare was to win more new business, the company used e-learning to secure the green credentials it needed quickly and cheaply.

Continuing professional development is compulsory for dentists and dental technicians. The judges commended the Dental Channel’s provision of an excellent range of resources, and fine mix of multimedia e-learning, journals and meaningful assessments including webinars. Live webinars offer the online equivalent of evening lectures, with webcams, polling and chat ensuring that participants are actively engaged in learning. On-demand webinars provide edited versions of the live events, combined with quizzes and feedback. Read more here.

The best e-learning programme with widespread adoption

• Gold winner- Information Transfer and Care Management Group

A focus on learner needs, workflow integration and extensive internal communication drove an enthusiastic wave of adoption and very high approval ratings by CMG staff. It has also cut costs by around £300k a year. A great story about how to introduce learning technologies into an organisation. Click here for more information 

• Silver winner- Boots UK

In the year since its launch, e-learning has been taken up by 71% of Boots staff, with 250,000 modules completed – an average of 3.5 per store employee. There was a significant focus on supporting learners and fostering competition between the stores helped treble user engagement in months.

• Bronze winner- Inmarkets and Aviva

viva wanted to create a group-wide e-learning programme covering business security and spanning 20 countries and 16 languages. To win buy-in, it involved line managers and business protection staff in the content development and communication plan to create a single 30-minute course. Of the 20,000 employees targeted, 84% completed the training within six weeks. The average mark in the post-course assessments was 92%. Find out more.

Best Use of Mobile Learning

With nearly half its recruits lacking essential numeracy skills, the British Army realised something new was needed & the Nintendo DS mobile platform was the solution. Read more about the Army Operation Numerika project here.

Best Use of Rapid E-learning Content

• Gold winner- Autonomy

Autonomy developed an e-guide for Citröen  to solve the problem of car owners claiming on their warranties for car keys that don’t work properly. The car keys can typically be repaired in minutes at the car dealership. Though fast, the repair is fiddly: difficult to describe on paper but easy to master once it has been demonstrated. It took Autonomy just 10 days to create and roll out a short video e-guide explaining the repair. And within six weeks more than 1,600 dealer staff had viewed it. An e-guide that cost less than £4,000 to make is now well on the way to saving Citröen £1m.

• Silver winner- Canon and Kineo

Kineo’s task was to create a short e-learning module to communicate Canon’s key messages and approach to 500 staff attending a major print exhibition. And it was given just 17 days – and £10,000 – to deliver. Its module included an interactive stand guide to walk staff through the key features of the Canon show presence, and the use of Moodle to track learner progress and scores. find out more here

• Bronze winner- NHS 24

The e-learning module captured the screens and key functionality of NHS 24’s call streaming system so a simulation could be built to let learners practice correct call handling which was successfully built within two weeks.

Best Use of Synchronous E-learning

By combining synchronous e-learning using Microsoft Live Meeting as part of an overall blend ,Lloyds’ HBOS arm is on track to cut its accommodation costs by £730,000 a year. The programme has halved the time it takes to develop a financial adviser to competence.

Hibernia College has used synchronous e-learning to address the needs of its students whatever their domestic, economic, geographic, financial or occupational circumstances. Find out more about their online learning experience watch  see this short video about this approach at work in Pfizer.

Best Online or Distance Learning Project

The judges were bowled over by this joint initiative between the Royal College of Anaesthetists and Department of Health. The venture, e-Learning for Healthcare, created the eLearning Anaesthesia (e-LA) project to support the first two years of specialist training in anaesthesia leading to the College Fellowship Examination Part 1. This is not the only award e-learning for healthcare have – find out about their work with Radiologists in this short video

The BBC World Service Trust set up an online journalism training project for Iran called ZigZag to bring online learning modules into an interactive space that incorporates a blog, a forum, podcasts and social networking. The project promotes freedom of expression and widens the scope for media diversity in Iran through user participation.

Hibernia College’s Irish Higher Diploma in Arts in Primary Education (HDAPE) is a blended programme that currently produces around half of Ireland’s qualified primary school teachers. find out more here

Best Learning Game, Simulation or Virtual Environment

Caspian produced a two-and-a-half-hour simulation for the Royal Navy for its new recruits giving new recruits a realistic preview of their future conditions and working environment, and helps them get to grips with life onboard a frigate. It does so through a game: on board the ship is a saboteur, and the learner must find and fix the equipment he has sabotaged, locate the saboteur, and disarm his bomb before time runs out. In doing so, the learner explores the frigate and its cramped noisy compartments.

This authentic, challenging and engaging simulation teaches students as young as 14 the basics of starting their own business. find out more about how colleges include the game in their classrooms.

The game, 5S Challenge  appeals to users’ competitive nature through real-life scenarios to teach and assess knowledge on lean business systems. Learners discover a pizza  restaurant is disorganised and its staff demotivated, and score points for decisions that improve the business. find out more here

E-learning Internal Project Team of the Year

A very small team had to deliver an e-learning approach that would be fully adopted by a geographically diverse group. Its computer-based training course offers a high level of interaction and video narration by real trainers. It has proved highly effective with learners and dispelled the myth that CBT is just a book on screen, or cheap alternative to classroom delivery. The success of the project has enhanced the perceptions of e-learning in the company and the reputation of Aviva in its key partner relationships. It also created cost savings for Aviva and other business benefits. The judges praised the team for improving the way business operates.

E-learning Development Company of the Year

Commended for their high standards of work and customer satisfaction, excellence in design, innovation and demonstrable results. Find out more about Brightwave at http://www.brightwave.co.uk/

Every one of Nelson Croom's customers would recommend the company to other businesses - Find out more about Nelson Croom at http://www.nelsoncroom.co.uk/

E-learning Industry Award for Outstanding Achievement - Corporate

Highlighting Unicorn’s 21 year record of profit and growth, the award recognises the outstanding contribution Unicorn has made in delivery of learning and development to the UK financial sector. Find out more.

E-learning Industry Award for Outstanding Achievement - Individual

To read details of the judges citations - click  here.

Here is a taster of some of the events coming up:

• 
  16th November - L&D 2020 - Shaping change in workplace learning ( Training Journal 1 day event, Cambridge)
  

This event is a continuation of the important programme of work focussing on the critical skills of L&D professionals moving forward. 

For more information - http://www.trainingjournal.com/directories/events/training-event807.html

• 17 - 19 November - Learntrends ( Free online international conference)
  

A series of free online events that are looking at  convergence in workplace learning & features Jay Cross , Charles Jennings and many others ( including TM on 18th Nov at 6pm!)

For more information  - http://learntrends.ning.com/page/learntrends-2009

• 20th November - Next Generation Blended Learning (eLearning Network 1 day event, London)

A fantastic line up of speakers ( including Clive Shepherd, at this popular networking event on a critical subject! 

For more information - http://www.elearningnetwork.org/content/next-generation-blended-learning

•  2 – 4 Dec - Online Educa Berlin (International conference , Berlin)

If you are able to get to Berlin this December ( 09), we’d love to see you atOnline Educa Berlin – they have a very strong focus on work place e-learning this year with some excellent speakers and workshops focussing on a new era of workplace learning.

For more information - http://www.online-educa.com/programme

• 27 – 28 Jan 10 - Learning Technologies 2010 ( UK's largest learning technology event , London) 

LT2010 has just launched it’s conference programme ( – given the popularity of LT09, we’d recommend that you book early to avoid disappointment.). There is also a free exhibition with over 50 seminars so book the dates in your diary.

For more information on the conference and exhibition - http://www.learningtechnologies.co.uk/index.html

We are gathering the stories in a number of ways:

• The Towards Maturity team have been reviewing previous stories on site to pull out the facts and figures behind their success
• They have also been working with businesses directly to help them quantify their benefits
• Towards Maturity Community of Excellence partners are contributing their stories
  

Our aim is to provide a single place for evidence that will support learning and development professionals who are looking to build their own business case for change. But it is not only for TM’s readers, we are working with e-Learning Age Magazine to promote our findings through their Bringing Business Benefits campaign and will be sharing findings via the online communities of our partner organisations ( such as e-Learning Network, Learning and Skills Group and BILD).

Here is just a taster of some of our findings over the first few weeks of this work:

Evidence that learning technologies improve speed to competency

• e—learning for Health  - Benchmark test groups highlighted that their blended learning approach reduced the time to bring newly qualified radiologists up to agreed competency levels  from 16 months to 7 months
• The Priory group - Effective use of learning technologies in their Foundations for Growth has improved speed of induction – allowing new care homes to be opened in weeks rather than months. ( Foundations for growth has also saved approximately £9 million since inception, calculated from cost and time savings)
• Identity and Passport Service - Opened 68 new offices, employing 600 new staff within time and achieving a return on investment of approximately 2:1
• Coventry Building society- Technology allowed compliance training to be tailored to role reducing the time to prove competency and was £169,000 cheaper than previous methods
   

Improving sales

• Ford Academy - Sales people completing the e-learning have recorded 2.4 additional car sales per year

Examples of Productivity Gains

• Hilton - Overall, 71% of Hilton International employees have been able to save more than one hour per week because of their improved English skills made possible by online learning.
  

Carbon savings

General efficiencies

• Dental Channel - The savings for dentists for over 1,500 learner hours of interactive conferences that have been delivered probably exceeds £280,000.

 We will be adding to this list over the coming months and would love to hear from you if you have evidence to share that will support other's in engaging their business with new ways of learning!

10 years ago, almost to the day, every staff member of the company I worked for was called to a special meeting to hear about a significant new event in the world of online learning. 

Together with my colleagues around the globe, I was interested to hear what was going to be unveiled.  After all, since the mid 90’s I had been involved in implementing some very state of the art learning  over the internet with equally state of the art organisations who were looking to address the pressures of working in a global economy. At that time, a number of those organisations were using engaging content, practicing in virtual labs and were supported by 24x7 online mentoring to support their IT qualifications. Earlier in 99 we’d seen the launch of a web-based virtual community full of educational resources and information, where learners could interact with each other and with experts in real time. At the end of the 90’s I had seen so much change hit the industry as a result of the internet so quickly that I wasn’t sure what could be next!

E-Learning happened next – I was working for a company called CBT Systems and at that October meeting in 1999, we were introduced for the first time to the term e-learning.  The core idea behind the term was about using the internet to redefine  how we learn, moving away from the traditional  course and assessment sandwich ( online or face to face) and instead breaking down the core elements of learning ( instruction, collaboration with peers and experts, assessment and ongoing application) to offer a seamless flow of learning opportunities to busy staff. 

 New ways of learning for a smarter workforce?

Along with introduction of e-learning, we were also introduced a new company name -  Smartforce as the focus of this e-learning was to enable a smarter workforce who are better prepared and supported for the knowledge economy and internet age.   The press release announced Smartforce e-learning  as ‘reinvention of learning for the Internet Age, with e-learning empowering individual learners and enabling enterprises to gain a competitive advantage in today's ever-changing business world.’
Despite the hype surrounding the introduction of e-learning ,  the concept of a reinvention of learning  ( both online and classroom) to encompass knowledge sharing, performance support  and  practice took off. Masie went on record to talk about the ’ e’ in e-learning standing for experience, extended and expanded learning  and Marc Rosenberg’s excellent book  on e-learning in 2001 provided clear guidelines for changing the way that organisations learn for competitive advantage.

10 years on

Yet 10 years on I attended the e-learning debate at the Oxford union and the same Mark Rosenberg who stood up to say e- is for enough!

The 2009 e-learning debate ( hosted by Epic)  was around the motion that ‘this house believes that the e-learning of today is essential for the skills of tomorrow’  .

Those for the motion  ( led by Prof Diana Laurillard)  were arguing that e-learning , defined in the widest sense as the use of technologies across the formal and informal learning process ( including performance support, online books, games, mobiles) is absolutely essential to address the rapidly changing knowledge and information needs of staff in the workplace today. Examples were given, statistics were shared and I found myself in agreement with everyone on the panel, their argument’s resonated strongly with my own concept of e-learning formed 10 years previously.

Those against ( led by Dr Marc Rosenberg) highlighted that e-learning today was woefully short with poor quality content, death by powerpoint and lack of market penetration indicating that we have a long way to go. David Wilson rightly commented that the main areas that e-learning was used for was induction compliance and product training- all of which were useful but how much was essential for the digital skills, leadership skills and innovative thinking needed for tomorrow? Again I found myself in complete agreement.

What has stopped us living up to the promise? 

It was clear that 10 years on, e-learning as a term had failed to live up to the promise outlined in October 1999. I believe a number of factors have been responsible for that. The original execution of e-learning via a single proprietary system (mysmartforce)  was not appropriate, the social acceptance of engaging with others online did not exist then as it does today, the dot com crash crushed confidence and the 'enron factor' in the early 2000’s put the whole world on regulatory red alert. All of the e-learning industry’s resources were diverted into compliance training, which to be honest probably kept it afloat but stifled innovation.

However some took hold of that original vision and as tools became more widely available , more learning solutions embraced the power of the internet to  addressing customers service, leadership skills and problem solving – the essential skills of tomorrow. Organisations like Thomson Reuters, BT, Cisco and IBM are embracing web 2.0 to ensure that they harness knowledge from within. 10 years on I can see that the e-learning that does exist today (and was first defined in 1999) and can address the essential skills of tomorrow so I voted yes. 

But I completely understand why the vote was overwhelmingly won by the No’s.  I am in a privileged position to see how the most innovative companies are making this work and are redefining workplace learning as a result. But our research also shows that many more are not getting the same results and most of the time, as a result of dumbing down, their e-learning experience doesn’t even match what was available 10 years ago!

So what to do to move on?

Chatting with Phil Green after the debate, I commented that I felt that all the building blocks are that we need to create the type of learning interventions we need to keep pace with the future are in place today and more accessible than ever. But Phil, ever the architect, commented that it is what you build with them that counts, a building is only as good as its design and I agree.  We need to focus on the skills and approaches of L&D staff to take full advantage of the opportunities in our hands.

For learning and development professionals I think it is time to feel the fear and do it anyway! – take time to push aside the negative experiences and preconceived ideas about what e-learning is and isn’t in order to work out how to take these tools and create solutions that will meet your organisations needs today – the future is in your hands.

For those in the e-learning supply side, we need to be open to innovation as well – where can technology add value to your customer’s needs, do you need to redefine your existing models of e-learning? How do you keep flexible enough to keep ahead of the curve?

This debate was very timely in my view – bringing the industry’s thoughts back to the original concept of e-learning – one of reinvention, agility and adaptability and relevance. I believe that e-learning of yesterday was essential for the skills of today but I agree that the e-learning of today is questionable. Lets makes sure that the e-learning of tomorrow (and I mean tomorrow- we don’t have time to wait another 10 years) lives up to its promise.

1. Sakai as Learning Infrastructure: Introduction and Development Directions –  John Norman:

Sakai is an open source platform developed by a number of the world’s leading universities to provide online support for collaboration and learning scenarios. John Norman from the University of Cambridge is obviously very knowledgeable of Sakai as they are heavily involved in the development of the next version. John’s presentations confirmed my belief that there are many different organisations that have different requirements of a Learning Management System (or Managed Learning Environment) and although the academic & corporate sectors both need a system that manages learning the methods they’ve adopted to achieving it are poles apart!

For more information on Sakai go to: http://sakaiproject.org/portal
 
2. Online performance management - Oliver Daly

Martin from e2train provided some research & statistics on Learning Management Systems and refuted the idea that the LMS as a product was on its last legs! He talked about technology infrastructure and how much more popular Software as a Service (SaaS) is these days He also put forward the top 5 ‘must have’ features of an LMS.
 
 
21st Century learning management - Matt Brewer and Barry Sampson

This next session was an interesting exercise. There were four groups and I’d been asked to facilitate one of them. The first ‘round’ was to ask the question what would ‘this role/person’ expect from a learning management system. Each group and facilitator had a difference role/perspective
• The Learners
• The business / Management
• HR/L&D professionals
• IT professionals
 
My responsibility was to look after the ‘management’ group and keep the ideas flowing from the participants. After a time I moved round to the next group with the large piece of paper containing an almost illegible (due to my writing) mindmap that had been constructed by the first group. The next group of participants built on the first group’s ideas. I then moved on to the final group who had a difficult task of working out how this would be achieved.
 
Our discussions were from a managers perspective, the system would need to be ‘all singing all dancing’ but most of all simple and intuitive – which does not happen often with IT systems –  more features usually means more complexity. Managers also wanted the system to seamlessly integrate with all other business systems.
 
We concluded that for the majority of the features it is down to the LMS suppliers to provide a system that is as flexible as possible however there is also a major responsibility for an organisations senior management to ensure that all departments work together rather than against each other or even going off independently doing their own thing. Particularly L&D, IT and Comms departments should be using the same software rather buying their own separate systems.
 
5. Do you get what you pay for? - Fiona Leteney

Then it was my turn:
Whether it is a 3-piece-suite or a pair of shoes I’ve grown up believing ‘you get what you pay for’. So when recently I was presented with a choice of price tags: ‘free’ or a cool ‘million’ for Learning Management System (LMS) licences, which one did I advise my client to choose? During this session I presented four case studies to illustrate when a free, mid-range or expensive LMS is right for an organisation.
I described how I helped a number of clients purchase their second because they were not happy with the first. It really does depend on the individual situations whether their organisation should go for which category of price tag. Surprisingly (or not) one size doesn’t fit all!
 
The whole day was very enjoyable and it will not be my last e-learning network event. The next event is on the 20th November 2009 for further information go to:
www.elearningnetwork.org

This article is full of handy snippets of practical advice and thought provoking comments. "Human speech adds a personal element that activates our inherent social responses", "It is quite common for people to recoil in horror when they hear a recording of their own voice."  are just two of the interesting statements in the article. Others are: "Learning is improved when a complex visual is explained by audio rather than text", "Use a second screen so you can see what the participants see", "use a short live video introduction" and "live sessions are rarely an end in themselves" are just some of the thought provoking comments that Clive makes in this article.

If you are planning to be a tutor in a live virtual conference or lesson, perhaps as a guest tutor then this is more essential reading for you. If you are making decisions about on-line delivery technology then this is useful background; will the tutors you select have the right skills for on-line classroom delivery, if not will they be able to aquire those skills?

This conference round up provides a summary of some of the future directions outlined by industry expert Bob Mosher and some practical hints and tips from the workshops.

The  challenge - from training deliverer to broker & facilitator

‘The economy is rocking a conservative industry [L&D]’  said Bob Mosher, Global Chief of Learning Strategy and Evangelist with Learning Guide solutions  who opened the conference with a challenge - ‘We live in interesting times – Learning and Development professionals are being asked to do more with less and yet businesses need L&D more than ever to remain vital and vibrant’.

Bob has been an active and influential leader in the learning industry for over 25 years and is renowned worldwide for his pioneering and innovative approaches to learning  and e-learning in companies such as Microsoft . He also won the IITT’s prestigious Colin Corder award for Outstanding contribution to the IT training industry.

In the opening keynote, he highlighted the pressures on L&D to respond to cut budgets but increase quality and the need to harness technology more effectively. However more e-learning and standard blended learning approaches were not going to cut it as they often didn’t address actual learner needs. 

The concept of creating an holistic learning ecosystem was  discussed with the L&D professional moving into the role of learning brokers – facilitating learning at the moment of need for the learner. I found the 5 points of learner need outlined particularly useful:

1. when learning for 1st time ( formal)
2. when wanting lo learn more (formal)
3. when trying to remember or apply
4. when things change
5. when something goes wrong

These  moments of need recognise that formal learning clearly still has it’s place ( points 1 – 2) but that we need to also support learning at other points of need as well ( points 3 -4). He quoted Alison Rossett’s thoughts  on the need to move on from talking about informal learning and shift to ideas around performance support ( which are more likely to attract budget from decision makers). 

Practical advice was given regarding first steps in this new role of broker and facilitator. The audience were urged to review the current performance support assets within the organisation – job aids, communities of practice, help desks etc and align them against the 5 moments of need to make them more accessible. An enabling infrastructure was also recommended.

Finally the group were challenged not to be a ship in safe harbour – the staff that we are supporting are out at sea in difficult times – now is the time for L&D to set sail into the storm and do what we are supposed to do to support performance in rapidly changing times.

This shift in role is becoming a reoccuring theme - Nick Shackleton-Jones at the BBC has shared similar thoughts with Towards Maturity and Training Journal's L&D 2020 research confirm the shift as well.

Practical ideas from the workshops

The Event provided plenty of practical hints and tips as well - here are just a few of my favorites!

Social Media and Networking - free tools at training fingertips.

Barry Sampson outlined the web 2.0 tools that we need to be aware of if we are to think about offering choice to learners and to learn ourselves. Business networks like LinkedIn are great for research and ideas, social networks such as facebook are better for conversations and relationships (eg to help new graduates feel at home in a new location!). Nich networks such as Ning help you bring together people with common interests to share and reflect. Blogging is also great to encourage reflection and social bookmarks great for sharing, as are tools such as google docs.

Turning classroom trainers into multimedia stars

Julie Wedgwood from Cheshire ICT Trust provided a stellar performance as she shared her journey to help her reluctant training team to embrace the tools that Barry had been highlighting earlier. Her 21 lessons was a programme designed to help trainers try out new things in a safe environment - every lesson was great - but the simple things really worked.

For example each team member was asked to follow 3 RSS feeds of their choice and feedback what they had learned to their team after a week - a practice that not only introduced them to a new technology but a new way of keeping up to date. Other lessons included using free tools for evaluating learning, keeping attention, reflection, sharing, storyboarding and many many others! All were based on exploring and experimenting in a safe environment which resulted in a transformed learning experience for staff.

Career Management

Paul Jagger from IBM highlighted how L&D staff can take practical steps in managing their career in a recession. He had hints and tips such as using LinkedIn, volunteering ( both in work and outside), job shadowing and continual learning.

'However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at results'

Claire Line from Lovells took us through a session on areas to consider for an effective e-learning strategy - practical ideas included understand what success looks like for your stakeholders and then deliver ( not always about ROI,in Claire's case it was about billing time), understand your audience and use local champions to encourage change.

Find out more about the IITT's Trainer 2009 event here.

Phase 1

The first phase of the project had three main elements. We started by identifying trends and developments that might impact the world of Learning & Development.  We described these trends under 36 headings grouped into the four areas of Society, Work & Business, Technology, and the Brain & Psychology.

We then developed the second main element of the project, the scenarios. These were three possible futures that might emerge for Learning & Development and were designed to stimulate discussion about how L&D might respond in the different situations:

• L&D is queen – impact of learning is clear and learning & well-being are highly important for organisations, learning is for whole life not just work.
• Organisational necessity – economy and competition are tough, learning is focused on just immediate work issues and is seen as a cost to be contained.
• National learning – UK Plc is struggling and the government is driving the learning and well-being agenda, companies are reluctant to invest in training.

Out of a short series of workshops and dialogue with other colleagues came a number of emerging conclusions, the third element of this first phase of the project.

Emerging conclusions

L&D is changing and will continue to change. The scenarios describe some very different possible futures and yet some key themes emerged which reflect the changes as being evolutionary rather than revolutionary, continuing travel along the path that some organisations have already started.

• The importance of continuous, informal, social learning will continue to grow and will require L&D professionals to become competent in creating the conditions for this to occur.
• Individuals will increasingly look for ways for their informal learning to be recognised (accredited) to demonstrate their value in the market.
• The skill of learning will become increasingly important and people will need to be helped to become even more effective at learning for themselves and with others.
• Whilst individuals will find ways to learn for themselves, the role of the line manager in focusing and reinforcing learning will continue to be crucial.
• New technologies are not just ways of delivering the same content differently, they open up new opportunities for people to learn.
• The boundaries between L&D and Organisational Development will blur further as learning is embedded into the way organisations work.
• There will be a shift in balance of the L&D professionals’ skillset towards greater business understanding, change management, organisation development and use of new technologies.
  

Phase 2

The second phase of the project is sharing these ideas more widely to create a dialogue with leading practitioners in the L&D field through workshops and events. Another crucial part of this phase of the research is looking for organisations that are reorganising their L&D functions and changing the skills that are required for their L&D people.

So far we have identified and interviewed four organisations: the Civil Aviation Authority, the Department for Work and Pensions, Legal and General and Rolls Royce and you can read the case studies online.

All the organisations so far investigated are at different stages along their journeys and while each organisation describes its needs in different ways there are some clear, common patterns appearing. There seem to be three basic groups of necessary skills or knowledge: business understanding, the technical skills of learning and development and an understanding of consulting or business partnering.

Some consulting organisations talk about T-shaped people those who have a broad understanding of the business (the top of the T) and an in-depth knowledge of their specialism (the upright of the T) and these two dimensions are then deployed through their consulting skills. This model of thinking might be a useful for L&D people to think about their own skills.

L&D professionals need a comprehensive understanding of what L&D can do, how it can do it and what new approaches might be possible, as well as understanding the evidence base that supports these. Depending on the role, they may also have a portfolio of possible delivery options that they themselves can deploy.

They will have a broad understanding of business, be comfortable engaging with business managers at the highest levels and challenging them about their business issues, and care deeply about the business that they work in. They will deploy these L&D and business capabilities through their consulting or business partnering roles, which will allow them to build strong working relationships, diagnose issues and manage the change or  project process with either internal or external resources.
 
Different roles in different organisations will, of course, require a different mix of these three main areas. The major difference, though, that came through from all the interviews was that the difference between ‘new’ and ‘old’ L&D professionals is the focus on the business outcome rather than the L&D process, and the flexibility to do whatever it takes to achieve this.

Finally, it is also worth reflecting that, while the examples above have focused on the skills and knowledge required of L&D practitioners, all those people interviewed also mentioned the importance of the right attitude in achieving success as an L&D Professional.

The L&D 2020 project is ongoing and TJ is keen to hear from organisations who believe they are doing things differently. If you are willing to share your story please contact Debbie Carter at debbiecarter@trainingjournal.com

To find out more about the research so far and about the workshops and events for 2009 and 2010 please click here.

• Personal brand challenges professional qualification as a sign of quality
• Impact of informal learning on CPD
• CPD in real time: ubiquitous performance support
• Measures that matter
• Looking forward

Middlesex are amongst the pioneers of Work Based Learning (WBL)at HE level and since 2005 has been a nationally recognised centre of excellence. WBL has been defined as; “A modern way of creating university-level learning in the workplace”. It offers customised learning programmes tailored to the specific needs of the organisation, designed to be flexible and high standard. The programmes are modular, part-time study, and focused on real work based projects designed to offer maximum benefit to the organisation. This approach to integrating qualifications with real work requirements has the potential to address important higher level skills in the work place whilst minimising the disruption to important day to day running of the business. So we were interested in finding out more!

MODNet is an interesting partnership of learning providers from across private and funded sectors looking to extend this approach to WBL by providing specialist learning and training programmes which complement employee’s existing skills and knowledge, helping employers develop expertise within their workforce.

This ranges from small chunks of just-in-time learning to long term strategic partnerships.
Lord Sebastian Coe was the keynote speaker. He emphasised the holistic approach that MODNet can provide, stressing the importance of blending previous experience and new learning disciplines, pointing out that: “You cling to the experiences you have had in the workplace when you change career.”

Bruce Dickinson, rock musician and Director of the Brighton Institute of Modern Music gave a great example of this process in action when he spoke of his experiences following a WBL programme at Middlesex. Bruce gained an MA in Educational Management and states that: ‘Middlesex’s unique approach to WBL  supported me by recognising that my past achievements had value and putting me on an appropriate level of programme.    ...I was supported to achieve this whilst working full time in a demanding job, and around family commitments.’

He is now a keen advocate of this method of learning, saying that: ‘WBL is my first choice when looking at professional training for industry based professionals.’ ( you can find out more about the impact of this process on Bruce's career and business by clicking here)

MODNet also offer accredited training, research and consultancy services, including the ability to accredit existing in-house training and extend its impact through customised work-based projects.

In 2008 the IWBL issued this statement: “Rather than expressing frustration over management and individual capabilities, business leaders must implement effective learning and development programmes, and performance management tools to enable them to enhance their performance.”
MODNet provides employers with a successful method of achieving these aims.

For more information about MODNet visit www.mdx.ac.uk/wbl

The free 20-page booklet, helps trainers to understand just how extraordinary the opportunities are for improving the impact, accessibility, flexibility, timeliness, cost-effectiveness and environmental friendliness of learning and development interventions. And most importantly of all, it shows trainers how they can play a vital role in bringing this all about.

The booklet has been written by Clive Shepherd, one of the UK’s most prominent thinkers on learning and development and currently chair of the eLearning Network, and Laura Overton, Managing Director of Towards Maturity CIC. Towards Maturity Enterprises Ltd will also work with the authors to provide online updates for those registered to receive them.(click here to register)

Towards Maturity's research over the years has shown that technology can make a considerable impact on learning in the workplace when it is applied effectively to business problems from the start. From Towards Maturity CIC's perspective, our aim with this booklet is to provide a dynamic resource for trainers who are looking to take their first step but want to make it count. By providing easy access to independent information and real-life case studies, we hope this simple resource will help l&d professionals to build confidence and save time!

This booklet has been created to support Next Generation Learning in the workplace, a national initiative , led by Becta to improve the awareness of the benefits of adopting technology in learning. The booklet is initially available as a PDF download through TrainingZone.co.uk, Towards Maturity CIC and Learning and Skills group, and then subsequently in print form as an insert with Learning Technologies magazine.

What does the L&D community think about the booklet? 

Donald H Taylor, Chair of Learning and Skills Group: “The Learning and Skills Group, along with the Learning Technologies and Learning and Skills events, is delighted to support the ‘what every l&d professional needs to know about e-learning’ booklet. We feel this is an invaluable contribution to our profession’s understanding of this increasingly important aspect to learning at work.”

Verity Gough, Editor, TrainingZone.co.uk: “We are excited to be supporting the ‘What every l&d professional needs to know about e-learning’ booklet. With technology changing so fast, it can be daunting trying to keep up with the times. This booklet will help even the most ardent technophobe get to grips with all the latest developments.”

Barry Wilding-Webb at Devon County Council: “I have been involved in learning and development in the public sector for 25 years. During that time I have been continually looking for new and exciting ways to engage adult learners in learning. While I enjoy and fully appreciate the value of face-to-face training and facilitation, there are pressures on professional trainers to be innovative in different areas now - those areas of cost benefit and value for money - while not sacrificing the quality of the learning experience. The 'what every l&d professional needs to know about e-learning' booklet illustrates how a variety of organisations can embrace the technology that can support their learning and development strategy, and the case studies are real examples of this and show what can be done. I would recommend this publication to any learning professional looking to implement blended learning within their organisation."

Keep up to date with new developments

The Booklet has been published by Towards Maturity Enterprises Ltd and you can keep up to date with new case studies and resources linked directly to the chapters by logging on at www.towardsmaturityenterprises.com/contact.You can download the booklet directly below and it is also available at the following addresses:

• http://www.towardsmaturityenterprises.com/first-steps
• http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/topic/learning-technologies/what-every-ld-professional-needs-know-about-e-learning
• www.learningandskillsgroup.co.uk

You can also join colleagues in an online discussion around the content via Training Zone.

 Booking 2 months ahead of the start date, I thought that it would be perfect for the quieter summer months and of course it never works out quite like that and as the workload became more frantic (of course everyone else is away!)I found myself thinking that I would have to pick up the phone and cancel – I am glad I didn’t!!

What does More than Instructional Design (MID)  cover?

Firstly we looked at the 'seven levels' of learner from school leaver through to PHD and considered motivation for learning and  how each level potentially uses technology in learning (based on some of Trainer1's own research over the years). This was a great way to start as it became very clear that one size fits all will not work ( those involved in compliance learning beware!).

We then went onto explore  some of the 'greats' of ID: Gagne, Kolb, Bloom, Race, Wager and others and considered the theories. It was great to have a reminder of the theories and to challenge them in the context of using technology in learning design for different levels of learners. The core discussion was around how do you encourage someone do something differently particularly in a fast changing business environment.

For me one of the highlights of the progamme was on day2 when we looked at lessons about design from Guttenburg and others – bringing in design concepts from the world of print and advertising to help create online content that draws the learner in and ensures that they remember what they have seen.

The session covering models to help in planning design again helped to demystify some of the jargon in the industry – we considered  models like ADDIE, ASSURE and UVID plus one of Neil’s own but I would have liked to had more time to discuss whether they really are useful in a time where content has to be delivered faster than ever before to respond to business demands.

We spent the final afternoon in a practical exercise looking at the elements that might be needed in the design of an e-learning course for making a cup of coffee. This was great fun and by then everyone wanted to start to think about applying what we had learned – the trouble was that we did not get quite enough time to do this justice although it was fun to let creative juices run riot ( and it was quite riotous-  at one point we ended up searching you-tube for content that might help with health & safety guidelines and horrified ourselves by finding clips of people burning themselves with boiling water – don’t go there!)

What I was surprised that I learned?
I thoroughly enjoyed Neil’s research on learner styles and preferences – did you know for example that learners through from school leavers to board level all relate to You- tube style video content . When it comes to text – blue collar and white collar workers don’t scroll down to read text. School leavers and board level read the first paragraph only and strategists read everything that you throw at them!

I also found that the work on page design, text font and positioning of content compelling – fonts such as arial are a no no as they are not designed to be remembered – only to grab headlines. White text on black backgrounds might look good but is less likely to be remembered.

That formula 1 is not quite as boring as I first thought! – the course was held in the Williams F1 centre and the tour included was fascinating!

Who would I recommend this for?

This was a great introduction those starting out in e-learning via the self paced content route – whether you are building content yourself or buying it in.  It is not deeply technical so perfect  for those who want to be innovative in learning but do not profess to be  geeks!

From the reaction of the group that I was with, it works regardless of the delegate’s sector background – my co learners were from global organisations,an FE college,  small businesses, charities and training providers.

What will you get from it ?

The course acts as a great reminder of important instructional design theories (not a bad thing for those involved in course design full stop, let alone those designing with technology!).
It also demystifies some very useful methodology jargon so that you can  hold your own when your potential provides discuss the merits of e-learning design methodologies.
Understanding what will be remembered on the page will help you to evaluate online content from providers as well as avoid costly mistakes in your own design.

What won’t you get from it?

Certainly you won’t get bored! – Despite the fact that this is predominantly a theory based course, Neil Lasher’s anecdotes and occasional (very bad ) jokes will stop you from  falling asleep after the excellent lunches.

I also found that you don’t  get much time to consider the implications of the instructional design theories for the wider context of blended learning  - the application of the theories was constrained within this programme to the design of self paced content. I was a bit surprised that some of the constructivist theories of learning were not included here as that would have opened up a wider opportunity to consider peer to peer generated content, informal  learning and other important areas that provide context for self paced content.

My own scores on the doors:

• 7 levels of learners – very useful to show that one size doesn’t fit all – 10/10
• Coverage of ID theories  and e-learning design models– 8/10 ( would have liked to see constructivsm included too as an option).
• Design tips and theories – 10/10  ( one of the best bits for me!)
• Choice of media for a e-learning intervention – 7/10  ( would like to see a bit more on other technologies that can be used to engage the levels of learners
• Venue & fun factor – 10/10
  Neil Lasher’s jokes – 1/10!

Find out more

For more information on dates and prices go to http://www.trainer1.com/mid.html

Just before Liz retired, she spent some time with me looking back at some of the achievements of unionlearn under her leadership.  Liz Smith was the TUC’s Learning Services National Officer prior to unionlearn being established in April 2006. Under her direction, unionlearn is now the biggest union learning organisation in the world, set up to encourage lifelong learning amongst members. Last year alone it brought a range of learning (from basic skills through to management and higher level learning) to quarter of a million learners.

Unions and learning

The main image that the public have of unions is often based around their focus on improving the conditions of pay and wellbeing of their members.  But they have also had a strong commitment to learning and development both within the unions themselves and also for union members in order to open up life chances for all. Over the last year for example, one of the key tasks of the organisation has been to help unions protect their more vulnerable members from the effects of economic downturn.
The formal learning system lets many people down but learning can transform lives by building self confidence and opening new doors. The workplace is a good place to start as it is where most people spend most of their time. One of Liz’s visions for unionlearn was to help workers contribute, build their skills and have the opportunity for progression.

Union learning reps – role models at the coal face of business

This learning focus is attracting a new kind of union activism on a local level – unionlearn have now recruited over 23,000 union learning representatives (ULRs) from within the union network, 35% of these individuals had not been involved in active union work before. They act as a peer role model to encourage individuals to overcome their preconceived ideas about learning.

The ULRs operate in workplaces where unions are recognised to promote learning providing advice and support and to work with employers to identify learning via the workplace, considering the right format of learning for the individuals and negotiating terms around learning such as time and opportunity to learn. They work to encourage managers to value learning, to ensure that employers allocate time for learning and encourage staff to make the most of the learning available and are active supporters of the flexible and accessible learning offered by technology. (For those of us working to get business engagement with new ways of learning – the ULRs could be handy to get to know – but more of that later!)

Harnessing technology in the workplace

Liz Smith’s legacy at Unionlearn includes the creation of a strong foundation in the effective use of learning technology. Liz strongly believes that it is critical to provide choices for individuals who operate in different personal and workplace contexts.  The traditional classroom had let a lot of people down and was often limited; the effective use of learning technologies within programmes increases the opportunity for fairness and equality.  As a result unionlearn have been at the forefront of identifying ways of stimulating innovation and identifying good practice with learning technologies.

However they were careful to walk before they could run and initially established a joint project with learndirect to establish U-net, a network of learning centres in the workplace, union offices and within TUC education centres. Learndirect offered an established range of products with back-up and national tests together with a network of learning centres where staff can work at their own pace but supported by others. There are now over 400 union led centres some in partnership with learndirect and others with local providers .They vary in size, some serving hundreds of workers, others being outreach pods that serve hard to reach workers – a model which is unique to the U-net network.

This year, the U-net network was subject to an Ofsted inspection and it has to be said, the results were glowing! The report places U-Net among the best providers in the country, awarding a Grade 2 for all aspects of learning provision. Ofsted judged overall success rates for skills for life learning as above national average and, importantly in an economic downturn, that ‘learners develop good skills and improve their employability and careers prospects’.  Ofsted also praised the influence that the U-net service had on progression as more than half of the skills for life learners went on to additional learning programmes. Significantly, the report highlighted that learners themselves cited the ULR as the most important factor in getting them involved in learning. Ofsted also said that the ULRs offered  outstanding peer support that involved being a mentor, advocate, advisor, negotiator and role model – in fact a model definition of a workplace e-learning champion!

Practicing what they preach

Unionlearn don’t just support the idea of using technology for their members, they also make sure that it is incorporated within their own reps, providing ULR’s and union reps with the opportunity to experience flexible blended learning first hand. TUC education offer union reps training on a wide range of subjects ( including courses on tackling racism, health and safety and other key topics as well as learning programmes for the ULRs) and have worked with unionlearn to make sure that they can be offered online to support work life balance of participants.  The ULRs also use an online tool called the climbing frame to help them provide appropriate advice and guidance as they consult with staff members so technology really is a way of helping them to connect and serve those that they are looking to inspire.

Unionlearn are also pushing the boundaries of new innovation, working in collaboration with partners including training providers, sector skills councils and business. A good example is the work of the Bloom project – through the Bloom project (bite sized learning objects on mobiles), ULRs worked on a project investigating the use of mobile phones to support Liverpool’s taxi drivers!

Having good experiences with online learning (both personally and for the members) also helps ULRs to support online learning in the workplace in creative ways. For example, the ULRs used a steering group approach to help breath life back into one energy company’s learning centre. Investments had been made in an onsite learning centre but it lacked buzz, had no input from staff and was inaccessible to those who may have needed it most. Through a steering group approach, the ULR were able to help turn the resource around and it is well used, an integral part of management thinking and a place where learning success is celebrated.

Is unionlearn just another quango or are businesses missing a trick?

Naturally Tom Wilson, Liz’s successor, would beg to differ and feels that employers which work with trade unions on workplace training to beat effects of the recession could really benefit saying ‘Evidence shows that those organisations which work with unions on learning often see better industrial relations, lower sickness and absence rates and big increase in morale.’

Having now met more of the individuals behind unionlearn at the party in July, I find myself agreeing with Tom.  From my conversations with Liz,  I see that ULRs and the team she is leaving behind at unionlearn continue to be passionate about the same things that most of the rest of us are - delivering more skills to more people,  supporting career progression, developing talent and introducing innovative learning methods  to engage those who’s needs traditionally have not been met.
For those that know the Towards Maturity research, we know that reluctance of staff to change is the most significant barrier to the effective use of learning technologies in the workplace. More successful businesses are more likely (amongst other things) to focus on individual need, motivation, choice and career progression.

For those employers who are struggling to engage staff, particularly those that are more vulnerable in the workplace, the peer to peer support of union learning reps could be a godsend! They are local champion on the ground, speaking the same language as staff and encouraging staff to learn and take advantage of new opportunities. They work with management to encourage a culture of learning, are well equipped by their own learning and are tireless in their campaigning for change.
Whilst Liz has now stepped down, she has left a great legacy but she would still like to see more collaborative working with employers – she believes the work of the ULR’s is not just about skills activism on the ground but a strategic approach to individual and business success. It is critical that local regions, sectors, individuals and businesses are able to be in a position to respond to change and building skills innovatively is a lifeline.

Find out more about Unionlearn at http://www.unionlearn.org.uk/

This article is also published in www.e-learningage.co.uk

Are Virtual Worlds a serious contender as a corporate learning tool?

The evidence shows that they are already a useful tool for Higher Education; over 80% of Higher Education institutes in the UK are users of Virtual Worlds for educational purposes according to the Virtual World Watch  Experimental research work in schools also reveals Virtual Worlds make a difference to learners.  A project called Schome Park  has been used by The Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology (CREET)  at the Open University.  One hundred and forty nine young people were given access to an island in Teen Second Life .  One such learner commented “one thing I am really grateful to Schome Park for doing is making me feel more confident about trying new things, also about helping others if I know something they don’t, through communication.  Learning certainly doesn’t have to be a pen and paper – I much prefer learning through the Schome way, because it has much more bearing on RL (Real Life) than a load of stuff I would have forgotten in a year’s time.”

The fact that it is valuable to business is demonstrated by CISCO saving US$6m with just one virtual event  (Blog date May 14th 2009).   This update highlights the social phenomena of Second Life, the business benefit of Virtual Worlds and the opportunities for learning and development in work-based learning including a number of examples. Previous articles at Towards Maturity have introduced virtual worlds, and reported on the rise of serious games. This paper makes the case for Virtual Worlds to be taken seriously and presents some examples of their use for corporate training.

Social Phenomena of the Virtual World

The most widely used Virtual World space is Second Life.  This was launched by Linden Labs eight years ago on 23rd June 2003.  In February 2009 CNN reported that Second Life had, worldwide, six million users.  It would also appear that more of these users are outside the USA than within its borders.  Even if we accept the general estimate that 10% of registered users of technologies are actually active, this still gives 1.6 million active users in Second Life.  Users spend real money.  A short report by PA Consulting reports a daily turnover in excess of US$700,000.   PA Consulting themselves have opened a Virtual Presence in Second Life, primarily as a marketing channel for recruiting but also to gain hands-on experience of this environment.  The commercial opportunities of Second Life are being exploited by large companies.  Big brands like Vodaphone, Coca Cola and Sky News have a presence  in Second Life.  In May 2008 Business Week reported 340,000 active users and in an article called The (Virtual) Global Office  explored the business benefit of 3D spaces.

Politicians regard Second Life as worthwhile expenses.  David Milliband has recently become a resident as has Mark Field , Tory member for Cities of London and Westminster.

There is some doubt about the number of registered users in Second Life, their activity and how much revenue is actually spent.  Other Virtual World tools, such as Forterra, OpenSim and Blink 3D have much less hype surrounding them and a lower presence in the consumer world.  They are more likely to be used for serious corporate implementations as described in the next section.

Virtual Worlds as a business tool

Companies are using Virtual Worlds for internal meetings; particularly those with a Global reach.  Companies like IBM are investing in Immersive Workspaces from meetings to replace travelliJune 2009 IBM launched their Virtual Collaboration for Lotus Same Time Service. The Virtual Space has boardrooms, auditoriums and collaboration ng.  In spaces.  In a recent survey by the research firm Think Arm and reported in Information Week on June 25th 2009 more than half the respondents said that Virtual Spaces were less expensive than face-to-face meetings that often include travel and accommodation costs.  They were considered by many to be more cost-effective than web conferencing.

The article also describes the use of this Virtual Space by Northcentral Technical College in Wisconsin.  The college provides on-line Courses within IBM’s 3D environment.  This is considered to be more businesslike for educational use than consumer focused on-line worlds such as Second Life.  In May 2009 CISCO held a major strategic leadership conference to align all functions of the company worldwide on the key priorities for the coming year.  The web site report  (blog date May 14th 2009) described historical costs averaging US$2,800 per person and typically 3,000 attendees.  The cost for the Virtual Conference looks like being less than US$700 per person.  In addition with 3,000 attendees saving perhaps typically two days of travel time it also makes 6,000 person days of work saved in addition to the $6million cost savings.

Virtual Worlds as research tools.

In Second Health members of the Medical profession explore, discuss and shape a shared vision of the future of health care.  They do this in two Polyclinics to experiment and experience how new medical facilities could be designed and built.  This Virtual World includes an interactive Virtual Hospital Bay (including patient, pump, pulse oximeter and notes) to assess the potential of Second Life as a medium for the delivery of complex clinical training environments.  Watch the scenario played out on You Tube.

The same environment demonstrates the use of virtual worlds for training. The modern medical world is full of gadgets, complex to use. The Dept of Biosurgery and Surgical Technologies at Imperial College London built a scenario-based simulation in Second Life for learners to practice using modern medical devices. This demonstrates how virtual worlds can be used for learning. Participants were able to learn and practice in a complex but safe environment where they could make mistakes without risk to any real patients. Watch the scenario   play out on You Tube

Virtual Worlds as a Learning Tool

There is significant evidence that Virtual Worlds are useful educational tools.  In the Virtual World Watch of 22nd June 2009 John Kirriemuir reviewed the use made of Virtual Worlds by UK universities (over 80% of them do so).  In his report he quotes a typical view ‘Virtual Worlds have become a core technology for our teaching, learning, research and collaboration’ - Fiona Lyttleton, Virtual Worlds development adviser, University of Edinburgh.  Whilst a number of subjects, such as Health & Safety, Art & Design and Computer Science, are well represented in these Virtual Worlds the subject area that is leading the field is that of Health & Medical Science.   He comments this could be because the subject matter lends itself more easily to such development or may be due to the (relative) ease of funding for such applications.  An additional thought is that the critical nature of health care justifies greater fidelity of learning as mistakes may have fatal consequences as with aviation where full fidelity simulations have been used for many years.

As well as Higher Education, Virtual Worlds are being explored as a school environment.  Through a Becta  funded programme the Open University established a Virtual World suitable for school and home (hence Schome Park).  Resident teenagers have a high degree of control of their environment, local rules and what happens.  See www.schome.ac.uk for more detail of this exciting application.  The Schome Park initiative was led by Peter Twining of the OU and in a recent article in the May 2009 British Journal of Educational Technology he comments that “in the industrialised countries dissatisfaction with current education systems is most evident in the compulsory education sector, particularly those designed to cater for teenage learners.  This is reflected in growing rates of dissatisfaction in schools, growing teenage truancy and the increasing migration of parents away from school and towards home schooling”.

 Peter argues that changing this dissatisfaction and engaging the large numbers of disappointed, disillusioned and disappeared learners in education will require a complete re-think of education.  This must go beyond the reform of our existing systems because this will fail to deliver a workable solution.  The degree of change needed is too great.  Certainly the comments from within Schome demonstrate an active engagement by many residents.  Although there were also many who failed to engage in discussion and collaboration. 

The last word on Schome should come from its “residents” (learners).  “I’ve learned stuff just from chatting to people and hearing what they have to say”; “You always get a feeling that you can apply the skills and experience here to RL (Real Life)”; “Just talking to new people too it builds up confidence”; “I’ve learnt so much that I didn’t know before, it’s amazing what a real close community can do.  I particularly notice that no matter what the problem, there’s always some bright SParker  that will be able to help”; “This project is very liberating.  You can speak to other people without the hang-ups of real life, like appearance”; “You can be the real you without the judgement that is considered normal in the real world and can pursue your interests with the help and support of other like-minded individuals”.  It is self-evident that learners within Virtual Worlds find it a sociable and collaborative atmosphere for learning; possibly for some, more supportive than real life.

Corporate Training and Virtual Worlds

Given that Virtual Worlds are here to stay and have a future in education, conferencing and consumer activity it seems inevitable that they will become platforms for learning.  Will this engage the 43% of SME employers who provided no training to their employees in 2007/2008 as reported in the Annual Small Business Survey 07/08.  Given that implementing learning is a management issue not a technical issue the answer is unlikely.  However, given some of the cost and availability advantages it is likely that Virtual Worlds will become a much more popular learning environment.

One example that bridges the gap between education and work is a Virtual Work Experience  development by Careers Scotland. Careers Scotland (Highlands and Islands) struggled to find work placements for teenagers.  The very dispersed communities away from large centres of population means that there is a very limited range of employers suitable and offering work experience.  Currently this offers 24 different work environments.  The simulation includes video clips of real life situations and interviews with people in various job roles.  Although it falls well short of a true Virtual World it demonstrates a bridge between education and corporate training.

Current examples of corporate Virtual Worlds are few and mostly in large companies with topics where mistakes have disastrous consequences; defence and medical topics. Daden Limited  has developed an immersive training environment of paramedic training.  Learners are “transported” to the scene of an incident, given all the normal tools available to them and have to carry out procedures and make decisions as they would in the real world.  Scenarios are facilitated by tutors who give real world feedback.  Learners ‘talk’ to the patient (either with text chat or voice chat) and the patient responds appropriately.  Both forms of interaction have their advantage, as one student commented “scenarios are much easier to use with voice to collaborate more naturally but with text you can go back and see what everyone has said”.  Both tutors and learners found it a positive experience; two comments: “I found that students assessed the patient as they should.  The students were able to talk about ways to assess the patient and discuss each step in detail before moving on” and from learners: “Making decisions helped learning”; “Decisions would be better if it affected the scenario more”; “Sometimes hard to realise what could and couldn’t do. Quite impressed by functionality.”

Watch a BBC on-line video of the programme and download more about this example of virtual worlds for serious training at the end of the article

Also from Daden (see the download section) is training for fashion designers in how to set up a fashion; of wider applicability to all those constructing public shows and events learners can set up, store and sequence lighting in a similar way to real-life. Once combined with avatars wearing fashions designed by the fashion students, and a full sound-system learners were able to recreate the whole fashion-show experience within the virtual world..  Read more about this in the download section at the end.

Incredible Sims Limited have used their Virtual World tool kit to develop a Submarine 3D World.  This is a Trafalgar Class Submarine.  It is absolutely vital that sub-mariners are closely familiar with a boat-systems layout.  Through the 3D experience they can explore and navigate their way through a submarine’s layout and recognise where systems can be found.  In June 2009 the BBC broadcast a brief synopsis of this training simulator viewable here

The British Army has development mathematics training (as traditional e-Learning modules) that is then put into practice by learners in a Virtual World.  Learners have to calculate loads and travel times to route a truck in battlefield conditions over temporary routes to arrive at a destination at a given time.  The Virtual World provides a practical ‘real world’ example for learners to put their newly gained mathematics knowledge into practice.  It also motivates them to complete their mathematics study. Learners work as teams to solve the various problems presented.  This scenario is primarily motivational in nature, the game being a stylised version of a battlefield.  Nevertheless it enables the theoretical knowledge gained through traditional e-Learning to be put into practice immediately.

Pixel Learning has created a Virtual World for a major US retail bank.  All 27,000 employees complete regular diversity and inclusion training.  This is so that they recognise the value of alternative views as well as ensuring their organisation is compliant with legislation.  The scenario is based in an alien space station where not one character is of the same ethnic origin.  Conflict needs resolving and disciplinary action may be required.  Users draw on previous knowledge and experiences to complete various tasks and challenges.  Although in an alien environment with no human forms the scenarios and content reflect those of real life.  This hybrid experience allows the simulation to reinforce specific concepts, thus allowing the user to take a step into a ‘character’s’ shoes instead of their own.

Read more about this in the download section at the end of the article

Pixel Learning have also developed an enterprise game created with the intention of familiarising learners, be they students or adults, about what running a business truly involves, introducing business concepts such as marketing and finance, business silos and the cause and effect factor of decisions.  Current use of this has been in classroom sessions both with school children and adult learners in further education. Business simulations in general, (see Towards Maturity article) are attractive as a means of training. One that allows entrepreneurs to drive businesses forward has the potential to be a powerful learning environment; after all what better way to learn to run a business than to compete with a Virtual Enterprise in a ‘Virtual Apprentice’ programme.

Read more about this in the download section at the end of the article

Conclusion
The principle driving force behind the investment in Virtual Worlds and by extension Serious Games is a The principle driving force behind the investment in Virtual Worlds and by extension Serious Games is a consumer-driven business. This presents all organisations with opportunity for the re-use or modification of games for serious training purposes, thereby saving a significant proportion of development costs as well as enhancing learner engagement, but balanced by the enduring need to meet formal training objectives and respect the laws of physics within the virtual environment.   The initial dialogue between the commercial game and  formal  training sectors could be characterised by an exchange which took place at the 2005 Serious Games Summit in Washington DC: thus, Marc Prensky, an educational futurologist and presenter, cited with approval a remark he had heard from a game developer who had said "Whenever you add an instructional designer to the team, the first thing they do is suck the fun out!"; whereupon a member of the audience (and presumably an instructional designer), Ricardo Rademacher, retorted that the converse could also be argued: "Whenever you add a games developer to the team, the first thing they do is suck the education out!".  Since then mutual understanding and respect have allowed the development of many successful collaborative applications. There has to be a balance between the game and real world benefit.

The motivation for many learners in corporate learning is to do their job better.  If the Virtual World is closely aligned with doing their job better than they are likely to find it a valuable experience.  The other potential for Virtual Worlds is to simulate situations in which mistakes would have unfortunate consequences.  Learners can learn from their mistakes in a Virtual World without harming others or damaging property.  Any procedure concerning safety therefore lends itself well to the Virtual World experience.

Click here to listen with the BBC iPlayer ( 28 mins).

In the programme, Peter Butler , Director of Learning at BT discusses why BT has gone down this route and shares practical lesson’s from implementing BT’s Dare2Share (you can also read about this progamme here).

Karie Willyerd, Chief Learning Officer and Charles Beckham, Chief Technologist at Sun Microsystems comment on their Social Learning Exchange and highlight how they help staff create content that can be easily found by others and how the programme was rolled out virally across the organisation.

Peter Day also explores the business drivers behind social learning, how it fits with more traditional approaches and some of the barriers. Peter Day's blog commentary provides an intersesting discussion on the challenges this approach brings to corporate culture.

This is well worth a listen for anyone considering how they might harness the informal learning that is already taking place in their business.

Thank you to Eric Davidove for sharing the link with Towards Maturity.

Whilst acknowledging that training is frequently cut back during these times he outlined three ways in which his Party would support employers.

1. Supply side reform. They would make investing in skills less bureaucratic.
2. Boosting apprenticeships. Paying bonuses to every small and medium sized company that took on an apprentice.
3. Overcoming doubts of that investment by making sure the money goes direct to the employers.

With regard to F.E. and H.E courses he stressed the need for them to be much more demand-led, citing a need for good collaboration between employers and trainers, creating responsive and dynamic training opportunities.

The method of funding in these areas was described as ‘complex, convoluted and opaque.’ Under Conservative rule the funding council would be reinvented as a slim structure possibly known as the Skills Funding Agency.

Funding for Adult and Community learning was also mentioned with £100 million extra to be pledged for providing re-skilling routes.

He summarised his thinking in three points:

• Elevate the practical. Have faith in vocational practical skills.
• Need for immensely flexible teaching and learning e.g. part-time learning, distance learning, modular learning. 
• Elevating the role of the teacher. Belief in the power of learning and the role of the educators.

He ended the interview with this statement;

“ …the 1944 Education Act talked about education for democratic citizenship. I say we should aim for no less with our generation in our era. Let’s be bold and ambitious for what we can achieve. As politicians we can play our parts but much more important are the teachers and the learners that really make the difference.”

You can watch the full interviews on Youtube by clicking on the following links

John Hayes MP Interview -  part 1

John Hayes  MP Interview part  - 2

Thank you to BILD for this great interview.

In addition research findings from Cegos reveal the gap between what employees want from e-learning and what L&D are delivering, and while survey findings from LMMatters and Training Zone confirm that the use of learning technologies will grow during these recessionary times, there is still a major challenge for all those in L&D to adopt new skills to fully harness the use of learning technologies. 

But perhaps there’s a further dimension to be brought into our thinking. A recent white paper from Infinity Learning provides a complimentary insight into how traditional career paths are disappearing and the role that learning technologies can play in adopting a new approach. It addresses:

• Has the traditional career path gone forever and how can effective learning support a new approach?
• What does the new career look like?
• How can learning technologies help individuals, managers and organisation adapt in the changing arena of career development in three priority areas:
  1) Plugging the training gaps and building competencies
  2) Building commitment for change
  3) Adaptability, performance and learning to learn from experience

In real terms it clearly pays to listen to what the providers have to say because they are going to be shaping their product and service offerings based on what their clients are telling them and what they genuinely believe the overall market is looking for. After all it doesn’t make a great deal of sense for the provider community to put their energies into products & services where there is no interest or demand.

The leading providers forge very close working relationships with their clients. They do that based on a thorough understanding of the client’s needs, the culture and the target audience(s) so inevitably provider strategies should be driven by client needs and expectations.

A full summary of who presented and what was covered is available by downloading below, but the list included:

Owen Rose from Information Transfer presenting a case study on the Care Management Group using the Towards Maturity model, Carole Bower from Edvantage Group talked about Collaborative e-learning Development and Stuart Chadwick from Kineo provided a number of examples on the use of Rapid Learning.

 Learning Technology Solution of the year

This Award is presented to an enterprise that has carried out a  training project using one or more learning technologies that demonstrates high quality and innovation - in terms of both content and instructional techniques - and that has made demonstrable performance improvement for the organisation.  This award is not longer about e-content solutions alone but can include a wide range of learning technology tools, infrastructure, consultancy etc.

We are certainly excited about the opportunities this will open up to showcase the excellent work being done in this area.

Instructional Designer of the year

This will be presented to an individual who has delivered a piece of work that shows exceptional instructional design and impact on the leaner and organisation.

Other categories include:

Training company , Training Department (public sector), Training Department ( private) , Internal training project, External training project, Venue, Innovation in Training Services, Staff Development programme, Training Manager, freelance trainer and Trainer of the year.

It is free to enter and you have until the 30th of September to prepare your submission.

Find out more here.

For hints and tips on how to prepare a great submission - click here.

The venue was not particularly well signposted, I’m glad I’d looked it up on ‘Google Street View’ so I could recognise the building I was aiming for. From the outside it was grand and steeped in history but as I walked through the glass front doors it opened into a light airy modern venue. The rooms and offices on three floors wrapped around a central coffee bar meeting place. A perfect metaphor for the conference first day which was to be all about Social Networking technology and where/how it meets traditional learning.

As I walked through the door, I was relieved to see a familiar face, holding the ‘Informatology Forum’ clipboard; I was directed to a welcome coffee and the first session. Stephen’s organisation continued like clockwork as usual, a credit to him and his team. They were even able to accommodate my late change of mind with respect to my choice of workshops, even though they were over subscribed. The venue struggled to keep pace with his exacting timetable but the occasional delay in refreshments gave impromptu networking opportunities so did not detract from the day for the delegates although it did present some extra work for the team.

The new format on that first day was the addition of hands-on workshops, along with traditional lecture theatre style presentations. The theory was we were able to try out the social media software in rooms equipped with PC’s. With only 45 minutes for each workshop and the majority of delegates knowing nothing about the subjects (they were there to learn), often there was only enough time to log into the application. Some workshops worked well, others would have been better as demo’s; I think it depended on how feature rich the software was and whether the presenter was able to picked out one or two functions to show, rather than cram a days training into 45 minutes. That said every single workshop that I attended was enjoyable and informative:

• Wordpress by Mike Little (not just a blogging site): www.wordpress.org
• Moodle by Ray Lawrence (how would you use the Moodle LMS): www.howtomoodle.com
• Elgg by Jane Hart (a platform to bring it all together): www.c4lpt.net/
• Facebook by Nick Shackleton-Jones (how to use the groups & create video): www.facebook.com
• Google Apps by the Google team: www.google.com/apps

So the new subject was social media; although I know a bit already and have been using twitter for a while, by the end of the day I was on overload. All these products that were new to me, the question remains should I be using them?

My highlights of the day 

Now that a few days have past I can reflect on the highlights of the day:

1. The Google team were impressive, I enjoyed the session from the Head of Learning Technologies at Google EMEA, initially charting the ways I’ve learnt and researched through my life. Illustrating how IT has followed real life: e.g  the questions asked of a mother that were answered with the forerunner to the hyperlink: “ask your father”! Culminating in a reference to Google Wave that was previewed only weeks earlier (see this Youtube preview for more info) and must be the ultimate (to date) in on-line conversation/collaboration platforms. One of the workshops I attended demoed Google Apps – again impressive, I just need the time and opportunity to try them out.
   
2. On a personal note, I’ve been putting off joining Facebook determined not to succumb to peer pressure in an attempt to keep my business and social life separate. However as it was Nick Shackleton-Jones from the BBC giving the Facebook workshop I decided to listen to what he had to say. He talked about the use of ‘Facebook groups’, illustrated using the one he set up for e-learning professionals with over 4000 members. I now have that feeling that I’m missing out on an opportunity here so checkout if Nick managed to convince me or not – can you find me on Facebook? To find this group if you are in Facebook go to settings>applications>groups> then search e-learning professionals.
   
3. In the final open Q&A session I raised a question that had been discussed at a clients of mine the previous week. Are we ready in the L&D departments to take the criticism/abuse from the learners if we ask for a star rating and comments at the end of an e-learning course? The feeling from the meeting was ‘we have to be’. If we are going to improve, we have to give the opportunity for people to comment publicly however this will only work if we are willing to listen and can be seen to be acting on what we hear.

A great day of learning and networking, I’m even more convinced now that social media/learning will compliment e-learning and that the informal will improve the formal. There will be pain in the short term I’m sure, as we open up to the world for comments and also learn to use these tools that are now so readily available.

Was the journey worth it? Absolutely!

The Department has been created by merging BERR  ( with it’s focus on business support and employer relationships) and DIUS ( with it's strengh in innovation, research and skills).

Pat McFadden MP, the new Minister for Business Innovation and Skills spoke about the aims of the new department at the 3rd annual conference of Unionlearn a few days into his new job on the 11th of June.

In his speech he said that the aim of merge of the 2 organisations was to pull together all the key elements needed to help the country through the current economic difficulties and in the long term, to try and shape the economic future of the country.

Building Britain’s Future – New Industry, New Jobs (a report produced before the budget)  was the genesis of the marriage between what was the Department for Universities and Skills and the Department for Business and Enterprise. In a world that is changing radically, the UK needs to build on its strengths and build on capabilities that will enable the country to take advantage of the changes we are facing in areas such as :

• Improving efficiency – delivering more quality with fewer resources
• Addressing global completion & increased international supply chains
• Responding to new technologies that are transforming business process
• Shifting to low carbon thinking – the need to reduce travel and open up opportunities
• Meeting demographic changes.

In his speech at Unionlearn’s event, the Minister went on to make 3 points about learning that he believes are essential in these tough economic times:

• Learning is critical to support the vulnerable
• Learning as a way out of the recession
• Learning as a way of taking advantage of the upturn

Many have long been advocating the need to have closer alignment of skills provision to business needs within business itself, this new department has the potential to align these 2 on a national level and so we watch with interest!

You can read the Ministers full speech here.

You can also see a summary  and watch the main speakers from the Unionlearn conference here

Over the past year, Becta and the national partners have been involved in range of initiatives to stimulate and inspire colleges and training providers in their use of learning technologies. Their initial plan to support providers across the FE system in their use of learning technology was first published in 2008 and progress has been made in a wide range of areas -  at a strategic level  through their initiatives to  inform policy and at a practical level ( for example releasing Generator – the new technology improvement leadership tool for FE).

They also commenced activity to engage with employers and sector skills councils via their work with Towards Maturity to specifically gather evidence around the impact of learning technologies in the workplace.  (Click here for full review of the past year).
 
The focus looking forward in tough economic times

In the forward of ther revised plan, the minister for FE calls for change across the sector saying ‘..as the Chancellor calls on industry in general to be innovative and to exploit technology , I call on the ‘skills industry’ to do the same’.
 
Stephen Crowne (Chief executive of Becta) says  that 'The revised plan will result in real change and benefits for learners and employers'.  The plan highlights how Becta will be working  in partnership with key skills agencies to look at issues of FE workforce development ( including professional standards),  content and digital resources, incentives and performance,  and communication and networking.
 
The plan addresses many areas of mutual interest for both providers and employers alike – including informal learning, creating blended learning programmes from digital resources, how to ensure content quality, and the alignment of learning technologies to address commercial competitiveness ( one of the aims of the technology strategy board). 
 
Engaging with employers, SSCs  and trade unions
 
As part of this plan , they are continuing to work with Towards Maturity to engage with those involved with delivering learning in the workplace through research and disemination of good practice in the workplace.
 
Jane Williams , Executive director of FE, Regeneration and skills says “It's important that we remember that while we at Becta take the strategic lead on delivering the Harnessing Technology strategy, we do this by working in partnership with a wide number of organisations. This is the sector's strategy and implementation plan, not just Becta's. We've been furthering our work with employers and representative bodies over the past year to help us achieve this and we want to take this work further. Technology brings demonstrable benefits to training and skills development in the workplace, benefiting individual employers and UK plc. However, we can only support employers if we listen to their needs, hear their success stories and understand the challenges they face. So do get in touch with us, via either Towards Maturity or our online collaboration site http://collaboration.becta.org.uk”

 
From our perspective at Towards Maturity, we welcome the opportunity to support the Next Generation Learning implementation plan. Our work with those providing learning at the coalface of business really highlights how radical change in learning development pays much needed dividends and we look forward to sharing some of this good practice both with industry and with FE providers through this community. 
.

Why? One reason is that it is one of the fastest routes for classroom trainers and experts to start to use technologies in a way that helps them reach more people with less resources. (find out more)

The reality is that if you're a classroom trainer, you won't find it difficult to transfer your skills to working online, although you'll probably benefit from a little training or coaching. You'll find the experience of learning online a little strange at first, but you should be able to adapt many of your existing classroom methods to the online medium.

Phil Green of Onlignment gives you a list of the essential planning steps to take and, surprise surprise, they are what every good classroom trainer will be doing. So find out how to sharpen up your skills and those of those of others in your teams.

Here are some of the ideas Phil talks about:

• A well-designed outline which defined the flow of each session
• Learner participation and control
• Good script-writing and the effective use of notes and prompts
• Richly expressive language matching language to the audience in mood, tone, idiolect and register
• Lots of learner participation
• Sometimes subtle, sometimes extravagant tricks to capture and sustain attention
• Careful and creative use of suitable images
• Good quality audio used in harmony with text and imagery
• The very active participation of learners
• A controlled voice with clear -diction, excellent articulation and a wide range of modulation
• More learner participation
• Good breath control and microphone technique
• Including suitable amounts of interactivity of the right sort
• Making good use of questions and other forms of interaction
• Maintaining control and keeping time
And finally....
• ACTIVE PARTICIPATION OF LEARNERS
 
The three key ingredients seem to be participation, participation, participation; with a bit of good planning thrown in.

This is an entertaining article about an emerging and expanding technology. Web conferencing cuts costs, delivers faster roll out of business critical information, is surprisingly cheap to implement, reduces your carbon footprint, increases access to scarce expertise, is great for remote audiences, is really quick to create, brings management practices into line across virtual teams. Do it well and it delivers many benefits; do it badly and waste time and money. Read how to do it well from the trainer's perspective.

As with all learning technologies our research shows maturity pays off; having the right skills is essential in doing the right thing in the right way. This article is an excellent start to acquiring the skills needed for web conferencing.

This article is published with kind permission of Onlignment.

At a time when the economic climate has stimulated considerable debate about the future of learning and development, I found that many of the sessions created opportunity for personal reflection and challenge - Here are just some of my highlights from the day:

The Conservative’s perspective on lifelong learning.
John Hayes MP (Shadow Minister for Lifelong Learning) gave an indication of the many changes a Conservative Government would implement in the public funded learning arena. Key themes that emerged included:

• His strong belief that education changes lives, but that opportunity for some does not equal opportunity for all.
• Everyone needs the opportunity to study but that we need to rethink the way that learning is provided – at a time, pace and place that meets individual needs.
• We need to recognise changing lifestyles of individuals and different modes of learning
  widening participation requires flexibility, different entry and stopping off points and the ability to transfer credits between FE & HE.
• We can’t just think in terms of accredited learning – individuals also need community based, impartial advice and guidance.
• All institutions should learn from best practice (including that in the workplace) – we need to build on the best, expand and look and learn from those who led the way’

The role of technology in releasing potential

The ‘technology’ sessions brought the audience up to date with a current view of the implications of technology for L&D professionals.

 Clive Shepherd (eLearning Network) looked at 3 forces for change for L&D – new thinking (about the brain and the way we learn), new expectations (of learners – both young and not so young!) and new pressures (environmental, cost and business). He went onto consider the ways that new learning media can enable change.

There were some very interesting and practical case studies from:

Charles Jennings (Duntroon Consultancy) continued the theme of change for L&D when he looked at the contribution we can make to building workforce capability based on his experiences at Thomson Reuters. (You can hear Charles’s views in the Towards Maturity interview   or catch up with his blog).

Charles Elvin (Open University)  considered how to use the right technology to ensure learning effectiveness. For Charles , getting it right meant using the right technology within a tight budget and that simple technologies can be both effective and cost effective. He provided 2 examples of this in action – one that brought to life ancient Egyptian art ( in partnership with the British Museum) and one that provided product training for sales teams that used simple audio to reduce error rates on products and service codes and cut customer complaints over a 6 month period.

Jim Potts and Group Captain Phil Sagar (The Defence Academy) looking at 2 projects – one that was unsuccessful and one that learned quickly from other’s experience with significant results.  These sessions threw up several practical lessons that highlight it is NOT just about technology :

• Don’t just identify risks, make sure steps are in place to militate against them!
• Consider hidden resource requirements ( particularly subject matter expert time, money, skills, and experience).
• Identify and address learner obstacles.
• Use blends of learning to provide continuous development that will help minimise knowledge and skills fade & reinforce previous education.
• Provide scenarios to contextualise knowledge and skill by rank and subject.
• Cement wins within the organisation

Towards Maturity had the opportunity to present from our research findings that highlighted that the lessons learned from the defence academy lined up with our maturity model and were critical for all organisations looking to improve the results in the workplace  and deliver more for less.

The impact of Coaching.

The ‘people’ sessions focused on the impact of coaching. Sir John Whitmore’s thought provoking session ignited debate, and this was followed by two excellent training awarding winning organisations, Liz McCann (BBC) and Paul Sealy (Kier Group), who described how they have financially benefited from coaching programmes.  Professor David Clutterbuck completed the day with current research findings about coaching and mentoring and the vital role learning and development professional’s play in developing all talent during the recession.

Stepping up to the challenge

Peter Hawkins (Windmills ) delivered an interactive session with his creative activities helping us think about releasing our potential. He challenged the audience to consider how we balance work, learning, playing and giving so that we can look back on our lives and be confident that we have made the most of our opportunities.  Whilst his thought provoking session kick started the day , I found myself going back to his challenges throughout the conference. The current change that we are facing as L&D professionals is not something to be feared but an opportunity to personally grow and develop, to try approaches that we have not considered before and to act as a catalyst to look at what we can do to ensure that we look back on our own lives with no regrets.

What did the participants think about the event ?

Here are a few of their comments about the conference – ‘the quality of the speakers were top notch’, ‘the best conference I’ve been to in a long time’, ‘ everyone was informed, entertaining and well worth listening to’, ‘to get these high level speakers is confirmation that the BILD has pulling power’ and ‘BILD offers its members great value for money’.

Speaker slides and materials are available to BILD members via the Institute’s website www.thebild.org

In an economic climate where time and budget are scarce and travel expenses are being slashed, there are a number of benefits for using web conferencing tools:

o Reduce Cost
o Reduce time  ( as a result of immediate distribution of business critical learning and content)
o Reduction in carbon footprint. (The greater the distance, the greater the benefit!)
o Increasing access to scarce expertise.
o Addressing needs of remote audiences.
o Speedy responses to rapidly changing learning needs
o Bring management practices into line across virtual teams
o Disseminate good practice or changing information quickly and consistently

These tools allow groups to come together online without leaving their place of work to learn together and to communicate with experts and with each other.Web conferencing tools provide  a rapid, simple, low-cost and straightforward opportunity for classroom trainers to extend their reach and migrate to new learning media.

You can see examples of the technology in action  on site .

This short introduction is aimed at those new to this technology and highlights pitfalls to avoid and signposts areas for further information.

The paper covers:

• What is web conferencing?
• Benefits of web conferencing 
• How does it work? 
• Implementation considerations
• Example tools 
• Where to go for more information 

 This paper is free to download but you will need to logon or register if you haven't already

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

Aimed at HR and learning and development professionals the event provides opportunity for networking and collaboration plus some great input on issues such as: 

• "Business Performance, Personal Fulfillment, Coaching and Leadership" with Sir John Whitmore
• "Nurturing Talent" with Professor Andrew Mayo
•  "Impacting your Business" with Professor Bob Fryer
• "Global Learning" with Clifford Chance and Rolls Royce (and Laura Overton)
• "Strategies for Online Learning" with Google
• "Online Learning Communities" with the BBC
• "Managing e-Learning" with Clive Shepherd
• "Recruiting for L&D" with LinkedIn.

The conference is hosted at IWBL, Middlesex University in London, it features hands-on workshops, MasterClasses and speed job interviews (for those looking), and includes a free iPod touch for standard delegates.

Download the brochure here .
 
 
TOWARDS MATURITY MEMBERS OFFER

The conference runs over 3 days and delegates have the option to attend all or part of the event. We have been provided with the following discounts. 

If you want to confirm your place then order now. Pay by 1 June.):

• Whole-Conference 1 place @ £595 [RRP £995]
• Additional place for full conference @ £300 [RRP £800]
• Single-Day: 1 place @ £295 [RRP £595]
• Additional place for single day @ £150 [RRP £400]

If you want to book a provisional Places (Apply now. We allocate places subject to availability by 10 June. Pay online by 15 June)

• Whole-Conference 1 place @ £345 (additionalplace @ £150)
• Single-Day: 1 place @ £245 )Additional place @ £50)

Taster Places on day 2 (L&D Strategies or L&D Technologies stream, not the Masterclass) in the afternoon (Order now. Pay now online)
> 1 place per organisation: £25
Add £100 [RRP £200] per person at one or both Masterclasses (day 2). Add £25 for each optional evening social (days 1 and 2)
Add VAT

Please use the attached form at for the application, quoting TOWARDSMATURITY to get the discounts above. In addition each participant should log onto the registration process to conplete their details., and  for each participant.

Place a confirmed order for at least £595 and collect an 8GB iPod touch at the conference; if its value is at least £995, collect instead an 16GB iPod touch at the conference.

PRIZE DRAW

Enter the conference prize draw (entry form here )

• *1st Prize: A place at the whole three-day conference, plus an 8GB iPod touch
• *Nine 2nd Prizes: A place at a conference day of your choice.

Informatology plan further mystery prizes as well. The prize draw is on June 1st.
If they win and have already booked they can use a prize as credit against an equivalent number of days for a colleague or at other Forum events. Terms on the penultimate page of the conference brochure.

Committee member Rob Hubbard opened the day by asking the audience to consider eLearning as an art. His suggestion that there was a similarity because they both take their inspiration from many areas was something that came up in later presentations too. 

If we all know what makes engaging elearning, why is so much of it dull?

Patrick Dunn of Networked Learning opened his session with this very simple challenge. He went on to share his journey through elearning, which he saw as having four distinct phases;

1. Methods & Media – In this phase the focus was primarily on the media tools; let’s add pictures, and animation and make it fun. Above all, we must have interactivity! There is plenty of straightforward advice I this area, such as use simple language and don’t repeat text as audio verbatim. Within his own organization Patrick created some simple tools to help manage media, which would deal with elements such as pacing, interactivity and the richness of the media. 

He proposed the CREAM model; Control, Relevance, Emotion, Action and a Multi Sensory environment. To be engaged, learners must have control over content which is relevant to what they do. It must make some emotional connection with the learner. The learner must be able to act, because without action, no learning takes place. As we know from theories of accelerated learning, we are better able to deliver learning if we stimulate all of the senses.   

Conclusion 1 - You can engage people with appropriate use of methods and media, but that's only a small part of it

2. Learning Strategies - The big idea behind how you do things. This is rooted in the principles of learning, and what causes people to change. The methods and media are the tactical elements that support delivery of the strategy. The connected world has made us impatient. People want to better themselves and they don't want to waste their time. It is up to the strategy to define how this will be done.

Conclusion 2 - Engaging elearning is built on effective elearning strategies

3. Design Process – Linking in to the idea of elearning as art, Patrick suggested that we could learn from either design approaches, such as graphic design and industrial design. Good design is reliant on good process.

In most cases instructional design is more akin to engineering than art, and typically goes through the following steps; performance objectives, learning objectives, learning strategy and tactics. Some very good instructional design follows a process much more like that of designers, and take a much more iterative approach. Moving between each phase as required. Like designers, it focuses on the user experience rather than the content.  

Conclusion 3 - Engaging elearning is built using fluid, iterative, user focused processes.

4. Culture & Personality – “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast” a quotation from the Ford Motor Company, is something we should all think about when working on an elearning initiative.

Patrick investigated the values of an organisation that produces engaging elearning, and found that they are fun and externally focused, and that this is entrenched in their beliefs and culture. They tend to have blurry roles, where people’s responsibilities regularly cross over. 

Conclusion 4 - Engaging elearning is built by organisations with appropriate cultural values by people with design orientation.

Demonstrations and hands on practice

As part of the day, I gave a short demonstration of Balsamiq Mockups, a tool designed for wireframing websites and software interfaces and we investigated how this could also be used to outline elearning modules.

Claire Line and Fae Longman then introduced the group to The Search for Weapons of Mass Instruction. The attendees were able to get up close demonstrations of Articulate Presenter, Atlantic Link, CourseBuilder and Thinking Worlds, as well as having access to visitors from the companies producing or distributing the tools.

Learning for people, by People.

Lucy Cartlidge and Stephanie Dedhar of Saffron Interactive talked about meeting the expectations of the client, and more importantly the end user, as the key to a long lasting relationship. By working together over a period of time it is better possible to understand the organisation’s culture.

There is a growing trend to using more e-enabled solutions, with them regularly being part of a blended solution.

Comparisons were drawn between good face to face training and good elearning; it is engaging, the learner is actively involved, they remember it, have chances for collaboration and discussion and also the opportunity to practice.

They suggested adopting a test and tell approach, rather than the more usual tell and test. This allows you to check what base knowledge the learner has, to build from it and to reinforce what they already know.

Rob Hubbard returned to the floor and led the group as they worked together on a collaborative mindmap, featuring the key points associated with creating engaging content. The mindmap can be found here.

Case study with NCALT

Mark Osborne and Jon Aveling of NCALT, gave a presentation on Exceeding Expectations by Delivering Quality. When they first launched elearning, they faced some resistance, as this was not a natural approach within the police service.

The focus was on a quality driven approach, with a centralised design and delivery team of multi skilled people. They defined an instructional design framework and production process, and supported this with a set of templates.

They demonstrated a number of pieces of content, which used variety of different treatments and styles suited to the subject. Straightforward informative content was delivered using simple graphics, whereas more hard hitting emotive content used interactive video scenarios.

Because the culture was not a natural fit, it was important to get people engaged from the start. Those running the Police Service clearly want people on the street doing their job, so it was important to demonstrate how elearning could save time away from the workplace, without impacting on quality.

Elearning champions were a key part of the launch, as it provided support at a local level where it was needed.

Towards Maturity have previously featured NCALT, and you can read their story here;

It seems that wherever you turn right now the ‘hot topic’ in the field of Learning Technologies is the use of Virtual Worlds (or Environments) and Serious Games and the latest BILD (The British Institute for Learning & Development) Connect Event held on Wednesday 13th Mat 2009 at the Museum of Army Flying, was no exception!

The Towards Maturity team started to focus on this whole area some time ago. We published a review on Serious Virtual Worlds towards the end of 2008

More recently a short paper by Clive Shepherd, created as part of Saffron Interactive's Advance community, was published to help demystify virtual worlds and their role in learning and to address ‘What are Virtual Worlds and why should businesses invest in them for learning purposes’?.

Finally my colleague Howard Hills has just published a summary report from the Apply Serious Games conference held on 7th May 2009 to support the Apply Serious Games 2009 Awards, so we can see heightened activity in this whole area.

It’s no surprise that BILD should deem it a ‘hot topic’ for their latest Connect Event, but what can we learn from the experiences shared during the day? Well there's an insight on different forms of simulation, a simple costs benefit analysis chart looking at costs and levels of fidelity and an example of a virtual world training exercise. 

The attached document details these and other conference highlights:

Winning organisations and those that have been shortlisted provide an endless source of inspiration for others as well as improving their own business results.

We are in the heart of the award season at the moment and if you are considering entering one of the awards at the moment and are wondering if it is worth the time and effort, then perhaps the following information might help you!

Why bother?

For organisations implementing learning innovation internally Towards Maturity’s latest research has shown that external success in awards shows a direct correlation to internal take-up of e-learning. Many organisations are struggling to engage learners and managers but we found that those organisations in the highest quartile take up are three and a half times more likely to report external successes in awards back to the business than those in the lowest quartile.

For providers – award successes win customers. A survey, commissioned by award entry consultants Boost Marketing and undertaken by market researchers Shape-the-Future, found that of the 400 business people who took part, 81% admitted to being influenced by awards when buying training/HR services for their business. The research also demonstrated an increasing appetite for entering awards despite the economic climate. This fact was reinforced by 76% of respondents agreeing with the statement “awards are important for generating business or improving the value of a brand”.

The attached paper outlines practical hints and tips for saving time and creating an award winning submission and some advice on measuring impact from Chris Robinson at Boost Marketing.

Download the report for 10 Top tips for creating award winning submissions:

1. Don’t be put off at the first hurdle
2. Do your research 
3. Don’t waste words
4. Stick to the story
5. Demonstrate business impact.
6. Consider carefully how you position cost efficiency savings 
7. Bullet the killer facts
8. Make the most of face to face time 
9. Be inspired by others ( you can read the stories of past winners on this site)
10. Inspire others.

A good award submission will also really inspire other organisations who are just setting out on a similar journey in their own business and at Towards Maturity our interest in awards is to find motivational examples, backed by strong evidence that will help others on their journey. Whether you are shortlisted or not, we would always love to hear from you and welcome the opportunity to share your story. 

UPDATE - June 09

We had a question from a reader regarding wordcount limits this month - does the limit include captions for illustrations, - callouts (side-panel text, quotations, etc),user feedback quotes
data in tables .

From my personal perception on wordcount ( as one who has to read a lot of submissions!) - the word count is a guide to ensure that you get your best points over well and succinctly and that you don't do yourselves a disservice by creating a long submission that might not get read properly.

From a psychological point of view - a submission with many, many pages (as a result of charts and graphs) may be slightly more daunting to get to even if the word count is low so I would suggest use common sense on the use of feedback quotes, tables etc in the main submissions - quotes and graphs are extremely important but include those that really pack a punch and, if the award allows it , put the rest in an appendix ( which may or may not get as much attention, depending on the time available to the judges).

Hope this helps & good luck with your submissions!

Please login (or register) to download this paper.

In our own research over the years on e-learning take-up, we have found that for businesses, having L&D successes recognised externally directly correlates with the take up of learning internally. For providers, a survey by Boost Marketing has highlighted 81% of 400 organisations admitted to being influenced by awards in the purchase of HR and training services.

As Chris Robinson from Boost Marketing points out - 'entering awards is sanity not vanity!' and over the next 2 months, there are plenty of opportunities to get involved with UK awards. Here is a round up of some of the top awards:

Institute of IT Training - submission deadline 30th September 

We are really pleased to see a new catagory for Learning Technology solution of the year this year which reflects the changes we are seeing in industry at the moment. Instructional Designer of the year is also new.Other catagories include internal project, external project, Training company and training department.

eLearning Awards (Bizmedia) - submission deadline: 31st July

Catagories include:

• The most innovative new product or tool in e-learning
• Excellence in the production of learning content - Private Sector (NEW)
• Excellence in the production of learning content - Public Sector (NEW)
• Excellence in the production of learning content - Not for Profit Sector (NEW) 
• Meeting the needs of compliance for an external regulator or an internal workforce 
• The best e-learning project securing widespread adoption 
• Best use of mobile learning (NEW)
• The best use of rapid e-learning content 
• The best use of synchronous e-learning
• The best online or distance learning programme 
• The best learning game, simulation or virtual environment
• E-learning internal project team of the year 
• E-learning development company of the year 
• E-learning industry award for outstanding achievement - individual 
• E-learning industry award for outstanding achievement - corporate

People Management Awards (CIPD) - submission deadline: 5th June 
Whilst these are predominantly HR awards, it would be great to see a technology enabled solution win the Learning and Development category where they are looking for a strong link from the L&D solution back to business growth

Personnel Today Awards (RBI) - submission deadline: 5th June

Specifically, their award for Excellence in Learning and Development – looking for the business benefits of new approaches to learning
 
Human Capital Awards (CBI/Real FD) - submission deadline: Early July

Categories include – innovation, service, education skills and leadership, managing change all of which might be relevant to those with an innovative approach to building business success with learning technology.

This is just a subset from a full list of awards opportunities available over the year which can be found at  http://www.boost-marketing.co.uk/awards/

Conference Theme
This conference was organised on 7th May 2009 to support the Apply Serious Games 2009 Awards.  The winner was VStep with Ship Simulator Professional.  The awards were presented by Lord Puttnam of Queensgate,   who also opened the conference.  The theme of many of the presentations described the role that serious games can play in managing carbon footprints.   Lord Puttnam expressed the view that the Western world still has to develop a 21st century way of thinking.  The increase in atmospheric carbon is real, the rise in global temperatures and in sea level is well documented.  He quoted Albert Einstein “we cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”.  The Climate Change Act requires organisations to reduce carbon emissions and the United Kingdom has set itself some very challenging targets.  Serious games have a serious part to play in reducing carbon output.

This report of the conference summarises and paraphrases the main discussions and presentations through the conference.

Potential of Serious Games
Serious games have two contributions to make.

• They allow players to live in a virtual world and make decisions about life which impact on the simulated environment.  The first thing that young people do when they play games based on sustainable environments is that they destroy the planet.  When they have done this a couple of times they begin to explore why this destruction happened.

The opportunity of making mistakes has always been the most powerful way of learning.  Serious games allow mistakes to be made without serious consequences.  Serious games which truly mimic the environment develop an attitude and thinking about climate change which influence behaviour, particularly that of young people, now and in the future.  If we fail to change the way in which we use the earth’s resources then civilisation may not exist on this planet in a hundred years.

• The other contribution serious games make is as a worldwide learning, meeting and collaboration platform that enables individuals to work and learn globally without travelling vast distances.  The potential here is for the UK to become the Hollywood of education, exporting educational digital media content for learning worldwide.  Serious games open up an educational methodology that allows learners to learn from their mistakes; a basic essential first step in any learning paradigm.  All of us can be right with hindsight and serious games allow individuals to have foresight from hindsight.

Although the credit crunch is driving much change in learning and development this should not detract us from seeking ways to influence behaviour that will help us manage the environment in a sustainable manner.

The Reality of Climate Change
Craig Simmons of Best Foot Forward presented some of the stark reality of climate change.  Our use of energy is rising exponentially, there is a steady reduction of snow cover in the Northern hemisphere, sea levels are rising, as are average global temperatures.  There is a rise in our consumption of all resources.  Craig described the effect of over fishing and the depleted nature of fish stocks as an example.  He stated that we use 30% more resources each year than the earth can sustainably provide.  Two-thirds of the services provided by nature to humans are in decline worldwide.

The Reality of Organisational Response
Justin Bovington of Rivers Run Red described some of the current influences on companies as a result of the credit crunch.  The Institute of Travel Management has been re-branded and is now the Institute of Travel and Meetings.  Justin described how they were moving from an expertise based on Air, Road and Track to one of Audio, Video and Immerse.  Justin believes that cost is driving this change but that climate change issues will ensure that organisations will not revert to the old ways.  He quoted one global organisation that is changing the culture from air miles and business travel to immersive meeting spaces by paying bonuses for staff who meet virtually.  Once people become used to virtual meeting spaces they will meet less in real life.

Steve Prentice of Gartner  made a clear assessment of the role of immersive technology in the business world.  Many organisations have made a ban on travel.  Training budgets are slashed but meetings are still required, as is personal development.  Many of these changes will become permanent; organisations are not going back to the way it was.  Those responsible for implementing virtual meeting spaces should not worry about the tools; they are mostly free or exceptionally low cost. 

Individuals themselves have a choice of how to communicate, the convenience of virtual meeting spaces will be apparent to many particularly if the lure of business travel and air miles is reduced.  He made it clear to the audience that if they were not sure they needed a three-dimensional meeting space then they probably didn’t.  Such spaces become more critical for learning and development where safety issues are significant.  This might be where physical safety is at risk or ethically damaging.  It takes several hours to learn how to use a 3-D immersive space and this raises the bar on the payback time for the individual as well as the organisation. He said that technology succeeds when it meets a need that people care about. 

Games are a drawback
He felt that the use of the word ‘games’ was a serious drawback to the adoption of the technology.  Games are trivial and are not taken seriously by senior managers in organisations.  The prefix ‘serious’ does not make enough of a difference.

It was essential for presenters and participants in virtual spaces to learn how to listen and how to present.  The quality of the content delivered was paramount.  Participants minimise the window on a virtual space and get on with other work unless the content is engaging and they are personally engaged with the presenter and others.

Security matters: organisations feel a need to manage the software in-house to ensure confidentiality and privacy.  Middle managers are probably the group that have the greatest problem using virtual worlds.  They are travelling all the time.  Organisations stretch the skills of middle managers across multiple sites and locations as they move towards ever-flatter management structures.   Metrics are essential to demonstrate the value of virtual meeting spaces and immersive technologies.  This has to be more sophisticated than just measuring the fact that participants are logged on.  It is important to measure the extent to which people interact in a meeting to understand the extent to which participants disengage from the presenter, from the content and from each other.

Conclusion. 
It was clear from the conference that climate change needs to be taken seriously, learning technologies in their widest sense have a key role to play in reducing our carbon footprint.  The Climate Change Act  will require organisations to do that.  The UK Government has set some exceptionally challenging targets with a requirement to reduce our carbon output by 26% by 2020 and 80% by the year 2050..  Learning and development professionals have to gear themselves up to help their organisations achieve that.  They will only do so by developing a 21st century way of thinking.

Having worked with commercial providers and employers over the last number of years, we believe at Towards Maturity that there are valuable lessons to be learned from our experiences. This invitation provides us with a direct opportunity to have our say.

Here is the response thatTowards Maturity posted on the site on the current vision - we wanted to raise the need for new types of learning solutions, new types of partnership and new ways of thinking - If  you want to add your comments and observations then click here and join in the debate!

A vision for FE &SKills in 2020 - can we afford to wait?

Learning and development staff within businesses (employers) today are finding that a catalogue of courses no longer addresses the fast changing needs of their organisation. As a result, many have been experimenting with different approaches, enabled by technology, to identify new types of learning and performance solutions that keep their organisations agile and responsive to change. In a demand led system of FE & Skills, can we afford to wait until 2020 before we see the changes outlined in this vision? What lessons can we learn from business today to accelerate the progress towards this vision for the future?

The drivers behind long term change to an active, demand led supply of skills (initially outlined the Leitch report and underlined in the more recent Building ‘ Britain's Future - New Industry, New Jobs’ policy statement ) are the drivers that have been influencing a review of skills delivery within business for some time. Businesses today have not been able to wait to address these challenges:

• Improving efficiency – delivering more quality with fewer resources
• Addressing global completion & increased international supply chains
• Responding to new technologies that are transforming business process
• Shifting to low carbon thinking – the need to reduce travel and open up opportunities
• Meeting demographic changes – attracting and retaining new types of learners whilst capturing tacit knowledge within the business

Business can't wait until 2020

Here are some examples of new types of learning solutions that businesses are developing today to meet these needs:

L&D staff in business are harnessing technologies to help them work directly with line managers to identify and capture best practice and create new types of solutions to help them be more responsive to changing demand /business priorities. For example the rapid development of business driven learning programmes was seen as a significant contributor to the business turn around at Cable &Wireless (see case study at http://tinyurl.com/TMC-Wstory)

In a fast paced knowledge economy, more businesses blending both formal learning interventions and informal peer to peer support to build staff performance on a day to day basis.
eg BT are trialling podcast/You tube style learning to encourage peer to peer sharing of knowledge and experience (http://tinyurl.com/TMBTstory) and Thomson Reuters have developed new learning services to deliver 70:20:10 model of learning to address the changing needs of their knowledge workers (http://tinyurl.com/TMCJintervw).

When staff are no longer able to travel but still have to keep up to date, organisations are bringing online content, resources, live links to experts and trainers to them as this example shows where busy dental professionals are able to meet professional CPD demands without having to leave the surgery (http://tinyurl.com/TMDentChstory)

Organisations are also changing models of formal learning intervention to take advantage of knowledge within the business and channel it into structured learning programmes. This example of customer service training in the library sector highlights how networks of staff were brought together to support learners(http://tinyurl.com/TMlibrstory).

Businesses are also building skills in the supply/distribution chain to ensure consistent skills & knowledge is not only available but also that can be adapted to local needs – the example of Toyota’s training of their distributors is a good example (http://tinyurl.com/TMtoyotastory).

These are just a few examples of changes taking place in the workplace today (see www.towardsmaturity.org for more).

Many of these solutions were developed with specialist partners who are innovative, responsive and unconstrained by funding mechanisms and the need to measure qualifications and student numbers. These solutions have been born out of business necessity and are outcome driven.

Implications for the 2020 vision for the FE sector

Whilst larger business are reinventing their skills solutions for themselves, it is up to the FE & Skills sector to respond on behalf of small organisations and individuals faced with the same challenges. This throws open a series of questions that have implications for the 5 areas of this vision.

What new partnerships will needed between funded providers, commercial providers and employers to ensure innovation and responsiveness?

Whilst technologies help to throw open the door of innovation in new skills solutions, the current funding mechanisms and measurements firmly close those doors again. Employers who have been successful in this area are driven by the outcomes not the learning inputs (i.e. number of staff trained/qualified). What do we need to do to shift current funding /attitude barriers that frustrate innovation and responsiveness?

The skills outlined in the vision for providers will need to be supplemented with a consultative business driven approach if current ‘providers of courses’ are to become ‘facilitators of business and individual performance’ so desperately needed in the new economic environment. What additional skills are needed in a demand led system?

On behalf of the Towards Maturity community, we welcome this debate and look forward to the ideas that will come through from this site.

TQS is a Quality Mark developed by the Learning and Skills Council and managed by CFE (a not for profit company)   The philosophy and approach is similar to the European Foundation of Quality Management; indeed obtaining the TQS also ticks the appropriate boxes in EFQM accreditation. TQS is an assessment framework designed to recognise and celebrate the best organisations delivering training and development solutions to employers

What does it do for organisations?
The real benefit to a training provider is going through the process of assessment for the TQS.  Providers have to ask questions of their customers (employers not learners) about the business benefit they obtain from the learning provided. The key statement is “Employer's assessment of impact on business needs shows an improving trend on a sustained high level of performance”; this is about business impact. Working through the process is more important to a provider than displaying the mark. This was well illustrated by a comment from Paul Kendall one of the presenters; “It is not the badge that counts; it is the attitudes and processes that TQS encourages you to pursue that delivers the benefit. “. He went on to say that his company EDF Ltd (Employee Development Forum) gained value from the external view that the assessor gave; it provided valuable feedback.

Who is using it?
About 260 training providers are en-route to (or have already obtained ) the TQS quality mark. This gives them a nationally recognised accreditation backed by the LSC and valid for three years, an external independent view of their internal processes and indicator statements describing what good looks like. The TQS website lists those companies that are already accredited. Some of them are user organisations. They have deemed it worthwhile to be assessed to check that they are delivering internal training that is making a difference to their businesses.  This is a valuable benchmark. TQS is suitable and valuable for all companies of all sizes. Successfully used by a training partnership of two people to large commercial providers like Thatcham Automotive Academy  The list includes a number of employers; such as BMW Group Academy UK (see a TM employer story), Rolls Royce UK Apprentice Training and British Gas Engineering Academy. (A full list can be found here.)  

A recent pilot with SMEs with less than 20 staff, turnover less than £500K and on one operating site proved highly successful. Some of those gaining the standard stated they had already won extra business because of TQS. Interestingly providing statutory training is often a key impact indicator for employers; that is employer’s assessment of impact shows an improving trend. Towards Maturity reports a number of employer stories where compliance has been a catalyst for the deployment of a learning technology.   

TQS represents a shift from learner focused delivery to employer focused. Whilst no training provider should forget the learner it is not enough for the UK to have lots of competent people; they must be competent in the skills that deliver business results and gainfully employed in using those skills. TQS moves training providers towards playing their part in achieving that goal. There is still a long way to go with an estimated 10,000 training providers in the UK, 3000 of whom have Learning and Skills funding, 1,000 of whom have Train2Gain contracts.

Why should it be used?
The Standard’s Assessment framework was developed by working with over 600 employers across the country, gathering information about what really matters to their business when buying training. Top of the list for 43% was training relevant to their business and top of the list for 23% was quality delivery. In the same way that Towards Maturity seeks out examples of real business benefit being gained from learning technologies so the standard encourages training providers to deliver learning solutions that deliver real business benefit for their customers; the employers of their learners.

Also CFE have just (27th April 2009) published an article giving a broader perspective on the need for this Standard and reporting highlights from research published by UKCES; Skills for the Workplace: Employer Perspectives’ 

How does it work?
The standard is in two parts. Part A includes indicators assessing the process used to achieve results for the employer. This leads from strategic definition of aims and required results through managing people, resources and information, understanding needs, delivering learning, relating to customers and finally making an impact on an employer’s business and improving their business performance. The twenty indicators in this process may sound daunting but represent nothing more than good business and training development practice. Applicants for the Standard will assemble information that supports the various indicators. The applicant submits an application and an assessor’s visits. The assessor will talk to people as well as looking at documents. Perhaps the most useful part of the visit is this external view that reflects what really happens and compares it to what management thinks happens. Talking to people at the frontline gives a better view of reality than reading management guidance.

One of the most useful tools on the TQS website is the readiness checker; indeed I would encourage any training provider to use this just as a quality check on their internal processes; it doesn’t replace the more in depth feedback a provider will get from an assessor. Two additional indicators within Part A reflect the way in which a provider learns from what they do and continuously improve their products and services.

Part B assessment works in the same way but the focus is on a Training Provider meeting the needs of a sector. The ten indicators in Part B measure the way a sector’s needs are met and results achieved. It demonstrates a providers capability of working within a sector.

Benefit to employers
The fact that some large employers have gained the standard indicates they see value in internal training departments working in ways defined by the TQS. Other employers gain the benefit of knowing their suppliers are committed to quality and ongoing improvement.

The recession hitting hard this year has just accelerated the demand for change and innovative thinking on behalf of learning and development professionals is now essential if they are to meet demands to deliver improved results with less resources. 

Our aim at Towards Maturity is to:

• Provide independent research to identify trends and good practice in the workplace. What is driving change? How can technology support change? How can we develop new learning approaches that will improve business performance?
• Gather and share good practice and thought leadership within the community so that we can learn from each other (and avoid each other's mistakes!)
• Proactively influence the wider UK skills agenda to meet business skill’s demand more effectively.

So what has been happening over the last 12 months?

More people are using even more resources:

Over 1500 organisations now subscribe to using our resources which have been growing over the year:

• 24 case studies have been added to the site to share experiences from a diverse range of private and public organisations.
• 11 podcasts from 8 employers (including Cable & Wireless, Reuters & the Royal Navy) and industry experts such as Clive Shepherd , Jane Hart and Gordon Bull.
• 50 news updates and analysis articles – varying from recession beating tips, conference reviews and analysis, hints and tips (social software, demonstrating value, engaging learners etc)
• Driving Business Benefits - A  major UK study to help organisations build the business case  for e-learning and to improve its impact.
• 12 research papers – in addition to our own, we also featured research from the Chartered Management institute, Skillsoft, Caspian and others.

Influencing change:

• We’ve had the opportunity to meet with many of you at the 20 events we have attended this year to share the good practice that is coming out of community research and resources.
• As a founding ambassador for Becta’s Next Generation Learning @ Work initiative, we have been able to highlight the needs of businesses in the wider Next Generation Learning campaign and create opportunities for a number of us to inform and influence this important work.
• Our personalised benchmark report has been received by over 200 organisations who are using it to strengthen their own internal implementations as this quote from Wendy Stubbs, learning Innovation Consultant at British airways shows:
• 
  I need to be externally focused and tap into what other organisations are doing, and learn from what’s working well and what’s not! This is one of the reasons why I jumped at the chance to contribute to a personalised benchmarking report produced by Towards Maturity. The information provided from this report supported internal presentations regarding my aspirations to change the way we do things around learning & innovations at British Airways.
  But none of this could be achieved without the help and contributions from organisations and individuals equally as passionate as us!

On our first Birthday we want to say a BIG THANK YOU from the Towards Maturity Team (Laura , Howard and Nige) to the organisations who have supported this work over the last year and who have been willing to share their expertise via the site:

Becta; Brightwave;British Computing Society; British Institute of Learning and Development; British Council; BT; Cable & Wireless; Certpoint; Charles Jennings; Chartered Management Institute; CIPD; Clive Shepherd; Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks; Connecting for Health; CrossKnowledge; Channel Content; ChangeFirst; Diageo; Donald Clark ;e-Learning age magazine; eLearning Network; Epic; e-skills UK ; Gordon Bull; Grass Roots; Hibernia College; IITT; Informatology; IRRV; Jane Hart;  Johnson Control; Kineo; Learning Pool; Learning Technologies; NCALT;Nelson Croom; Offpat; Online Educa; Pfizer; PLAN; Relay Consultants; RedTray; Rob Hubbard; Royal Navy; Saffron Interactive; Skills for Health; Praxis42; The Dental Channel; The environment agency; The Royal Shakespeare Company; Toyota; Training Zone

This summer there are some great events taking place that help us to update our own skills and with organisations demanding even more from their learning technologies, they create a great opportunity to network and move forward!

20th May (London) - if you are in the public sector and efficiency is high on the agenda then LearningPool's first annual conference shouldn't be missed! click here for more details.

8th May (London)- the eLearning Network's ever popular workshop in May will cover Creating engaging and effective e-learning content. With practical hands on experience and ideas from award winning experts, attendees will be able to ensure that any learner's first e-learning experience is a good one! click here for more information and to book a place.

11th June ( Open University, Milton Keynes) - the British Institute of Learning and Development's annual conference will look at 'Realising Potential - through people and technology'. Click here for more information.

23rd - 25th June (London) - Informatology believe it is smart to learn from your own experience and even smarter to learn from others. You can attend 1, 2 or 3 days of their annual conference that will provide network opportunities and a chance to learn from the likes of Google, the Department for transport, the BBC and many more -  click here for details on how to book.

No time and no budget? - no problem!

No time to get away - still no excuse as there are plenty of free online events taking place - book yourself a free place now!

The Association for Learning Technology  and the eLearning Network are running a series of free 90 minute lunchtime webinars.:

• 16 June - Serious Games - with Professor Sara De Freitas of the Serious Games Institute, at Coventry University and Christopher Brannigan from Caspian Learning - booking deadline 9/6/2009
• 15 October -Video on a Shoestring - with James Clay of Gloucestershire College and Rob Hubbard of LearningAge Solutions - booking deadline 9/10/2009.

For full descriptions of each webinar, and to book, click here

Can I thank all members for their input and support for the All Together Now community, which we set up to gather ideas and experiences to help shape the future of learning across the FE and Skills sector. There has been ongoing discussions and experiences shared via blogs, discussion forums and videos which has been really helpful.  This has fed into the refresh of the Harnessing Technology implementation plan for FE and Skills, now available at www. www.becta.org.uk/publications/nglplan.  We feel that the initial purpose of the community has been achieved and therefore the site will be taken down in the next few days. 
 
Members may also be interested to see the latest set of statistics showing progress made with harnessing technology across the sector.  These were released on 31 March and can be found at http://research.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=rh&catcode=_re_os_sc_03&rid=17752.  An analysis of these trends will be published in the summer.
 
A range of other fora exist for continuing discussion, including:
Becta online communities: http://collaboration.becta.org.uk/community/feandskills
The Learning Revolution online community: www.thelearningrevolution.ning.com
LLUK Social Media and Lifelong Learning: http://sociallearningonline.wordpress.com/

 Original message

Times are tough and we need to make the most of the skills opportunities that are available yet many businesses do not engage with their local FE & Skills providers despite the fact that over £11bn a year is invested in this sector on our behalf.  Why? To date provision has perhaps not been relevant enough, flexible enough or responsive to changing business needs.  Times are changing - the Sector Skills Councils have been established to ensure that learning is more relevant on their sector's behalf ( find your SSC here).

And now, Siôn Simon MP, Minister for Further Education,at the Department for Innovation, University and Skills (DIUS) wants to hear directly from you about what FE & Skills delivery needs to look like moving forward.The Department are welcoming suggestions for a bold vision of the future that meets the needs of  employers, providers and learners and have invited us to respond.

So what you might say!  Since when have actual employers and commercial providers of learning technologies had any say in this area before?  Well technologies are breaking down more than just the obvious barriers and they are providing us with a voice that we have not had before. All Together Now has been established to provide an equal platform for everyone to air our thoughts on what FE & Skills could look like in the future. 

Stuart Edwards, Deputy Director responsible for learning quality and systems at DIUS welcomes the relevance of our experience and contribution to their vision for 2020:

"We would be very keen to learn about leading-edge examples of how employers are using e-learning to bring real business benefits and any innovative plans for future development.  I would also be very interested in employers' views on what a FE and Skills system that harnesses technology to its full potential could look like in future." .

DIUS have put together some opening propositions on where things could be heading for FE & Skills towards 2020 and how that compares with evidence of where the sector is overall at the moment. Many businesses are working on aspects of Dius's vision for FE&Skills provision  today - please make sure Sion Simon hears about it! 

Where can i find out more?

On the All together Now site you can see the 5 areas that form aspects of a vision for the future, each illustrated by a number of statements highlight the implications for the way learners and business are supported

• Content and digital resources - eg A mixed economy exists of materials freely available and purchased through subscription
• Blogosphere, social media, web 2 - eg New media can be used to help providers and employers share content
• Provider and workforce capability eg - Providers work in partnership with other providers, schools and employers to deliver training when and where learners want it.
• Learner experience - eg Online delivery has transformed learner choice of formal and informal learning to meet their individual need
• Employers  - eg Employers are able to respond rapidly to challenges of global competition through tailored just in time learning solutions that impact productivity, innovation and speed to market.
  

These are just a few of the statements are here but the full list can be found in full at http://altogethernow.ning.com/.

• Does this vision go far enough to reflect the needs of business in the future?
• What else should it be addressing?
• What key actions need to be taken or barrier's removed

Towards Maturity will be responding to some of these areas based on the research and community contributions that represent how business is going about change but All Together Now provides us all individually with an opportunity to have our say by both commenting on DIUS's current position and adding new discussions over the next 2 months ( May/June).

http://altogethernow.ning.com/

 We have been invited to have our say - lets make sure we are heard!

Siôn Simon MP
Minister for Further Education 

Over 300 organisations took part and 7 sectors had 25 or more organisations providing data, allowing us to dig in deeper and compare sector experiences.

1. Education
2. Public services
3. Health
4. Finance
5. IT and Telecoms
6. Professional and technical
7. Service activities

This annex to the Driving Business Benefits report, summarises key differences between these different sectors in relation to their experiences of learning technologies in the workplace. 

We take a closer look at the following for each of the 7 sectors:

• Drivers for e-learning investment 
• Benefits
• Technologies and services
• Skills offerings
• Barriers to change
• Implementation strengths

Who will benefit from this report?

• All who participated in the Benchmark review - you can compare your results with others in your sector
• Those new to e-learning who are looking for specific evidence to back your business case for your sector
• Learning providers (both public and private) looking to improve learning provision and customer care within specific sectors

This annex is part of a suite of research reports. The full research findings are discussed in detail in Driving Business Benefits (feb 09), but this Sector Perspectives report provides a sector view on some of the key findings that we trust will be useful for both employers and learning providers in those sectors.

Download the full research suite here

All research downloads are free but you will need to be a registered user of this site - while you are logging on - don't forget to update your profile to help us provide you with a list of relevant resources and case studies  to help you on your e-learning journey( also available to you for free under My profile at the top of the home page)

This is an excellent starting point to put into context work in the military, retail stores and in the health sector. 

Clive highlights some of the reasons for virtual worlds; serious business reasons for investing. He explains learners can practice safely without harm to others, explore hazardous environments without real risk, organisations make possible what was impractical. Given that mistakes provide us with our most powerful learning experiences what better place to make a mistake than in a virtual world. 

New technologies inevitable have a hurdle in adoption and our research shows 8% of organisations are using virtual worlds; with another 18% considering their use. What is the best way of explaining virtual worlds to business leaders, what is the best way of explaining their benefit to learners, their benefit to business? For the 92% of organisations not using Virtual Worlds this is a good place to start.

This paper introduces the concept of virtual worlds in a language that is straightforward to understand. It explains virtual worlds are an extension both of games and the new collaborative nature of Web 2.0. It describes the advantages of simulations and identifies the difference between simulations and virtual worlds; put simply one player or many players.

The paper finishes with a comment about Second Life, perhaps the most well know example of a virtual world.. “Residents can explore their world, meet other residents, socialise, participate in individual and group activities, create and trade items and services from one another. In the process, they could learn something.”. By reading the paper you might learn something!

For something more serious read about the Serious Virtual Worlds Conference

This paper was created for Saffron Interactive's Advance community and is reproduced with kind permission.

A number of organisations provide certification programmes for learning and development professionals in blended learning but the best known for learning and development professionals in the workplace are probably the CIPD and the Training Foundation.

For the CIPD, within their certificate of Blended learning, the medium is in the message - delegates get to know about blended learning while experiencing it in action.

And now there is a chance to experience this for free. The CIPD are holding a free online open evening – Wednesday 8 April from 19:00 – 20:00 and CIPD Training invites you to find out more about the Certificate in Blended Learning at an online open evening. 

This will be a great opportunity to experience a virtual learning environment in action, you will be able to meet the tutors, hear live presentations, participate in online discussions and find out more.

To register for this online event, please call a CIPD Training customer service advisor on 020 8612 6202 or visit the website to find out more.

More information about the CIPD Training – Certificate in Blended Learning:

Blended learning is fast becoming the method of choice for the delivery of flexible, accessible, engaging and collaborative learning interventions that combine the very best of traditional learning and development approaches with opportunities provided by new technology. 

Providing significant advantages in terms of flexibility, access and cost saving, it is essential for trainers to engage with blended learning techniques and to take full advantage of the opportunities available.
CIPD Training’s Certificate in Blended Learning offers L&D and training professionals with an opportunity to gain the skills and expertise to plan, develop and deliver blended learning solutions.  It is designed to build upon existing knowledge and experience to help you adapt to an environment in which there are literally dozens of approaches to every learning and development problem, many of which are best deployed in imaginative new combinations.

Find out more about the what the programme covers here.

• Lack of knowledge about its potential use and implementation
• Lack of skills amongst staff to implement and manage e-learning 

 So where can we go to stay informed, keep in touch and build our skills?

Here are just a few ideas:

Short courses and workshops:

• For Instructional design and blended learning try - Trainer1 ( see our course review) , Optimum Learning (with Phil Green), Ministry of ID ( looking at rapid e-learning), Fastrak Consulting ( with Clive Shepherd, specialising in blended learning).
• For general introduction ,implementation and strategy - Towards Maturity Enterprises
• Getting starting with Virtual classroom - Onlignment:
  

Keep track of what is happening on line:

• Towards Maturity - online case studies, resources and latest research ( well we had to be included!)
• Center for Learning and Performance technologies - run by Jane Hart, to keep track of latest tools and technologies in learning
• e-learning age magazine

To keep in touch with fellow e-learning colleagues in the UK via online networks and conferences:

• the eLearning Network - providing an online community with opportunity to meet with colleagues face to face throughout the year
• Learning Technologies and it's learning and skills group (an online community extending connections with colleagues you have met at the LT conference)
• Informatology:- with an anual conference and company raids
• Online educa Berlin - networking & conference for Europe.

Build skills via certification programmes in e-learning and blended learning:

• CIPD - offer a 1 day course in making blended learning work and a series of other short courses in e-learning plus a  certificate in blended learning providing the opportunity to experience the media as you learn.
• The Training foundation - Their TAP system includes qualifications on blended learning, e-learning facilitation and design, and implemenation (click here for a review of the system by participants).

These are just a few to get started - Do let us know via the suggestion button below about other programmes, organisations or sites that you have found useful and we will be happy to include them.

Does e-learning deliver improved compliance standards?

75% of organisations who had a need for compliance training (from the last Towards Maturity survey) believe it does. Maturity in e-learning brings greater success in the quality of compliance delivery and reporting: 86% of mature implementations believe that they have received improved compliance compared with only 55% of the less mature organisations.

So what can we learn from practical examples of e-learning maturity and compliance in the workplace?

Test options
Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks created individual tests for each learner by the use of question banks, the probability of two learners seeing the same test is low. Previously only three versions of compliance tests were available which made re-testing problematic. Now a limitless number of versions of tests are available causing much less concern over the security of re-testing. It is possible to customize tests for learners, perhaps based on their past performance.

Eliminating Paper
Not only environmentally friendly, more secure (with proper attention to IT security) but is much cheaper. The Pensions Regulator justified a business case for e-learning simple on reducing printing, warehousing and distribution of learning materials. The Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment in Northern Ireland saved money with the online submission of students exams followed by onscreen marking. Delivering examinations and tests direct to learners simplifies the distribution of material.

Faster marking
Some assessment have to be read and marked, others may be scored by computer. In the former case scripts may be marked immediately an exam finishes; the results collated electronically, no waiting for scripts to be collected, posted securely and then distributed to examiners. In the latter case marking and collating of results is instantaneous. This brings the other asset of immediate reporting. A large accountancy’s Virtual Campus provides customised enterprise wide reports to meet the needs of external regulators; these are readily modified to meet local internal needs. Money is saved as well; HBOS reports a £44K per annum saving by eliminating manual marking.

Closer to workplace conditions
The A-level in the Moving Image Arts is examined electronically. This enables students to be assessed in skills that cannot be practiced on paper.  In all topics computers present workplace scenarios more realistically than on paper. Assessment moves beyond knowledge testing to reasoning skills. Learners are assessed in a wider range of skills, not yet manual skills but all mental skills and some elements of interpersonal skills. Simulations are better predictors of job performance than knowledge tests. Designers of assessment must exploit the interactive and processing capability of the computer. It may be assumed that tests that mimic workplace decisions and actions are more valid than those where knowledge only is regurgitated. The RSC introduced compliance with workstation assessment, as close to the real work place as is pssible; and a good starting point for more e-Learning.

A better experience
Learners frequently prefer on-line assessment. In some cases because it is less stressful; presentation of tests can be more imaginative, there is less peripheral hassle; just sit down and log on. Timing can be flexible.

Reliability and Validity
These are two essential features of any assessment regime. Reliability: does the test, or different versions of the test produce the same results each time it is used. Validity; does the test measure performance that is appropriate for the job that has to be done. Confirming reliability and validity are statistical exercises but vital in proving to the business, and to an external regulator that assessment processes are fit for purpose.

What does excellent e-learning compliance training deliver?
It does provide proof that employees are compliant in respect of learning and training that they are required to do. Learners do not necessarily go and learn other thing either to improve their job performance or enhance their careers. It does save money; Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks saved a staggering £1.4 billion from eliminating classroom delivery.

However our Towards Maturity research highlights that improved compliance quality does not automatically help to build a learning organisation or deliver embedded e-learning essential for ongoing business and staff impact. 

The launch took place at  Becta's Next Generation Learning conference where Minister for Further Education, Siôn Simon MP, challenged leaders from colleges, work-based learning and adult learning organisations to step up to the mark in their use of technology.

Siôn Simon MP said:
"I really want to see Further Education students enjoying the opportunities and benefits technology offers. There are already excellent examples of learning technologies right across the sector. But I want to see more and better. I want to see our colleges and training providers recognised nationally and internationally for the innovative and creative way they use technology.
One practical source of support is Becta's new online assessment tool, Generator, to help leaders in FE review and improve how technology is applied in their organisations. We need commitment from top management if the strategic importance of technology for learning is to be recognised."

What is Generator?

Generator is an online tool that offers providers the opportunity to identify where organisations can make improvements in their use of technology - it will help them to maximise their investment in technology for the benefit of learners.
Generator offers a review of an organisation’s  current use of technology, demonstrating areas where technology is effectively used to achieve outputs and has a positive impact on learner outcomes.  It further highlights areas where there are opportunities for improvement.

The tool provides insights on 9 business areas to help a college or funded work place learning provider :
•  review their current deployment of technology
•  reflect on the results
•  identify strengths and opportunities to improve
•  develop their plans

The tool has the capacity to combine multiple views from within an organisation and a useful feature is the ability to opt in to benchmark results against others in a similar sector.

Who was involved in it’s development?

A stakeholder steering group included representatives from all parts of the sector chaired by John Stone, Chief Executive of Learning Skills Network (LSN), has been closely involved in the design and development of Generator.

Towards Maturity has been involved with the steering group to provide insights from the use of learning technologies within the world of work to help FE & Skills providers to look at areas where they can use learning technologies to help address employer responsiveness.

Find out more:

If you are a funded learning provider in the FE & Skills sector , you can try it out for yourself at ww.generatorfeandskills.com or alternatively, find out more by emailing enquiries@generatorfeandskills.com

(28 January 2009) Businesses are demanding much more from learning technologies in the downturn but are failing to prepare themselves to take advantage of the opportunities available.

3 out of 5 businesses expect to increase the allocation of their budget to learning technologies moving into 2009 but they are demanding much more from their investment  according to ‘Driving Business Benefits’ -  the UK’s most comprehensive Benchmark survey  of learning technologies in the workplace  published today.

Strengthening induction training, improving the quality of work based learning  and developing a better qualified workforce topped the list of reasons for this increased investment, closely followed by a requirement to improve staff satisfaction to aid retention.  The drivers reflect a shift in attitude from 2 years ago when the primary reasons for investment were to improve learning access and flexibility and reducing costs.

However, despite increased expectations, 2 out of 5 of the businesses taking part did not agree that they had the skills to take advantage of new opportunities for learning.

The research, undertaken by Towards Maturity, is the 3rd in a longitudinal research series looking at trends in the use of learning technologies in the business environment.  The work is supported by Becta as part of the  Next Generation Learning @ Work campaign.

The research included more than 300 organisations across both private and public sectors.  It represents one of the most detailed studies to date into the ways that learning technologies are used in the business environment. The report highlights how organisations use and benefit from different types of e-learning, identifies critical success factors for e-learning success, and considers future trends. It is free to download from www.towardsmaturity.org.

‘ 2009 is a critical year for learning and development professionals to demonstrate that they can   add bottom line value to their organisations. As in any other profession, a downturn provides an ideal opportunity to innovate with new approaches and tools . We are thrilled with the record numbers of organisations who took part in this benchmark review.  The report provides the whole learning community with collective insights on how to step up to the challenge of delivering more with less this year ‘Laura Overton Managing Director, Towards Maturity

Jane Williams, Executive Director, Further Education, Regeneration and Delivery at Becta said: “This report highlights the need for continued investment in technology for learning in the workplace, even in the face of a challenging economic climate. 

“The report offers some interesting insights into the current position and future adoption of work based learning technologies, as well as the challenges ahead.
“Through our work with Towards Maturity, we aim to continue to stimulate the debate around work based e-learning.   We encourage all employers and providers to use the benchmark report to join the debate and explore the benefits of adopting Next Generation Learning in their own workplace.”

1. The people  factors are the biggest barriers to successful implementation – the top 3 barriers cited by over 50% of organisations were:

o Reluctance of staff to adopt new technology
o Lack of knowledge about its potential use and implementation
o Lack of skills amongst staff  to manage and implement e-learning

2. Overall, learning and development staff  understand the opportunity but currently are not making the most of the potential for engaging learners:

a. Less than 1 in 5 are using technology to support collaboration between learners
b. Only 2 out of 5 agree that information  about their e-learning is easy to find in their organisation
c. 1 in 5 organisations are still only using text based e-learning ( without supplementing this with video, animation, audio or images)

3. Those more mature  in their use of e-learning report more benefits from their e-learning investments eg
a. Established users are over 6  times as likely to report  improvements in quality than those who are sporadic users
b. Established users are over 3 times more likely than sporadic users to report improved staff satisfaction, improved customer satisfaction and an ability to respond faster to business demands.

4. Trends in technologies and services
a. Learning Technologies that allow learning and development to respond quickly to business needs have experienced the greatest growth in the last 2 years ( podcasting is up by 195%, rapid development tools up by 43% and the use of virtual classrooms is up by 23%)

Driving Business Benefits also goes on to analyse the habits of the highly successful e-learning implementations, useful for those who are looking to deliver increased business and learning benefits in 2009.  All participants received a personalised benchmark report indicating  their strengths and weaknesses for 20 activities known to improve business benefits, staff impact and take up. The final report will contain the generic benchmark report for everyone to use together with links to  free case studies and resources from the wider learning community to help them improve results.

 To find out more and download the reports , click here

In this free online resource, Kineo and learndirect Business have pulled together top e-learning experts in an online Green Room, prior to their appearances at the Learning Technologies show to share their insights on how to make e-learning successful.

Topics include:

• What makes a good e-learning project to start with?
• How do you get learners engaged?
• What are the obstacles to watch out for
• What is the one thing that you have learned about e-learning?

Interviews include:

• Jay Cross
• Jane Hart
• Donald Taylor
• Clive Shepherd
• Kirsty Donnelly
• Stephen Walsh & Steve Rayson
• (oh .. and us as well!)

Click here to enter the green room ( no login required!)

If this gets you thinking and you want to ask more questions, pop along to Learning Technologies on the 28th or 29th of January and see us there ( stand 107)

Thank you to Kineo and learndirect Business for sharing this with us!

 How are 300 public and private sector companies making the most of learning technologies in an economic downturn? Attend the launch of the findings from the 2009 Towards Maturity Benchmark review conducted late last year as the credit crisis hit the UK.

Free seminar - How can we use the research findings ? 

‘Driving Business Benefits’ – the new research report from Towards Maturity will be launched at Learning Technologies 09 on the 28th of January and will provide free insights on how organisations can improve the business impact of their learning technologies.

The findings will be presented in the exhibition seminar theatre 4 at Learning Technologies, London Olympia on the 28th of January at 15.30 pm.  It is free to attend. ( just register here)

Be amongst the first to find out how these findings can help you

• build your business case with latest data on tangible benefits
• benchmark your budget and implementation with others
• understand the latest trends in technologies
• deliver more from your current investment
• identify and overcome challenges (before they overcome you)

Free Advice from the Towards Maturity Team

If you took part in the Benchmark survey and want to discuss your personal benchmark with one of the Towards Maturity team, then we'd love to meet with you. do drop us a line ( via the ask an expert button below and we can schedule a time to meet with you) You can find us on Stand 107 in the exhibition centre.

Free Coffee

When you feel like a break at the conference, just bring a copy of this webpage to our stand ( or a copy of your personalised benchmark report!) and we will be happy to exchange it for a coffee.

 About Learning Technologies

The Learning Technologies exhibition, now in its tenth year, is Europe’s leading showcase of organisational learning and the technology used to support learning at work, and will take place on January 28-29 2009 at Olympia 2, London.

Organisational and technology supported learning is central to the success of any business and the Learning technologies exhibition is the ideal place to keep abreast of the latest learning trends and technologies.  

Other free seminar topics include

• e-assessment
• games-based learning
• informal learning
• learning and content management
• learning content and design
• mobile learning
• performance support
• rapid e-learning
• simulations
• social networking
• talent and project management
• thriving in an economic downturn

Click here to register for FREE entry to the exhibition and seminars

More information: www.learningtechnologies.co.uk

We welcome this whitepaper from Changefirst® which provides a number of case studies and examples designed to help change managers plan their initiatives in a way that focuses on the people aspects of organisational change .

This white paper examines the integration of learning technologies in a blended approach that build change management capability in organisations.

Changefirst® are the developers and suppliers of the  change management methodology - People-Centred Implementation (PCI®) which uses a robust set of tools to change how people work and behave.

How often do you tweet each day? Not at all? Once or twice? Do you tweet habitually? If you think this is perhaps what happens when ornithologists spend too much time with their feathered friends you’ve probably not heard of Twitter.   Twitter is a ‘micro-blogging’ application where you post updates in 140 characters or less. By default, your responses or ‘tweets’ are public, that is, anyone can see them and choose to ‘follow’ you. This means they will receive all your future tweets.

Originally intended as a way for friends and family to keep in touch, Twitter’s simple functionality belies the powerful ways in which it can be used. For example, in the immediate aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks in India, Twitter was used to summon blood donors to the specific hospitals that needed them.

You can search Twitter posts for keywords  for example your company name, product name or even your own name. There are 1 million + Twitter users, so it’s a great way to gauge the ‘buzz’ about a particular product or discover the difficulties people are having with that product. You can message people directly too, so companies are using Twitter to provide customer support.

So how can Twitter be used for learning? It is an excellent networking and communications tool and could be used for follow-up after a training intervention, or a way for people to ask questions of a subject matter expert. As with many of these Web 2.0 applications, the main limiting factor will be your organisation’s culture and whether it is acceptable to use third-party software to communicate about company business. Twitter can’t be moderated. Once a tweet has been published it’s in the public domain for keeps.

User Generated Video

Another technology that shows huge potential for training purposes is user-created video. Video as a training medium has been around for decades, however now, as never before, nearly all of us have the technology to record, edit and share our own video content. This could be best-practice recommendations from a leading light within your organisation, sales tips for a particular product, or video scenarios illustrating key points from a training programme.

Most mobile phones will now shoot video, and digital stills cameras are capable of some impressive results. You can of course go the whole hog and use your camcorder – it really depends on what you’re shooting, the shelf-life of the content, and whom it’s for. If you want to share a few quick tips with colleagues, your mobile phone may well be good enough. If you need to shoot something longer made up of a number of shots then a digital stills camera and a tripod may be your best bet. If you need to show detail, perhaps the particular parts of a product, then a domestic camcorder, tripod and decent lighting will be required.

You can achieve great results cheaply and quickly with a few pointers, and here they are:
1. Use a tripod. These don’t cost much and will save making your audience feel sick through a handheld camera bouncing about
2. Make sure whatever you are filming is well and evenly lit. For the best results digital cameras need good lighting, without it you will get visual artefacts (blocking) on the image. Ideally shoot outside in bright daylight. If you can’t, get a set of continuous studio lights. These can be bought online for as little as £130.
3. If you need to record sound, first check the quality of the cameras built in microphone. I bought a ‘prosumer’ hi-definition digital camcorder and was shocked at how bad the sound quality was, even with an external microphone. Get yourself a tie-clip microphone and minidisk or mp3 recorder instead. The sound quality will be far superior though it will mean a little extra work in the editing.

Video Editing and publishing 

Speaking of editing, having shot your video how do you edit it together into something meaningful? My editor of choice is iMovie for the Mac. It’s really simple to use and came free on my Mac. If you are a PC user there are many options available including online editing. I’m not going to recommend a specific PC based editor here since I don’t have much experience of them. My advice would be; search delicious  and see which editors other people rate. There are lots of decent free ones about.

When it comes to publishing your video take your pick of the online video sharing web sites. But do consider the commercial sensitivity of the material in the video – you may need to host the video within your firewall for information security purposes.

I hope this has given you some encouragement to try out these new technologies. The best thing is – they’re free! So the only investment you need to make is your time. Have fun!

 Efficiencies such as cost reduction, improvment of administration , increased access to flexible learning, consistency and quality of learning delivery, reducing carbon footprint all feature on the list of drivers for e-learning adoption in global companies.  It makes sense to think about centralised purchasing, economies of scale and using learning technologies to take advantage of the geographical boundaries that are being pulled down by technology.

But the reality often does not live up to the promise!

This is because there are challenges facing dispersed organisations who are looking to take advantage of co-ordinating learning via technologies and achieving economies of scale. Those companies that have grown through aquisition wil have one business  but with many cultures. Those set up to address regional and local needs will have parts of the organisation used to working autonomously to meet those needs and might reject a more centralised approach to learning provision as being irrelevant. Many local operations just can’t wait for a centralised learning provision to catch up and often forge ahead regardless. Technology infrastructue is not likely to be consistent which makes implementation more complex.  Many just resist change and feel that outside intervention takes away their authority. 

These challenges are not unique to global organisations – they apply equally to national organisations such as health services or policing where local provision of government services is balanced with central policy. Retail businesses working with local branches and franchise organisations can face the same  challenges.

However, global organisaitons also have to grapple with the issues of language and related geographical cultural barriers. Work and  learning cultures may differ from country to country and of course there is the language and localisation issue to grapple with.

 In our session at Online Educa we looked at how the 6 steps of learning implementation, drawing on many of the global case studies and research in this area already on this site to highlight practical suggestions to help deliver the promise.

 You can download the abstract of this session and the slides from the presentation below

You will need to log in to access these ( just click if you have forgotten your password and it will be resent to you!) - when you log in don't forget to update your profile which will tailor the content on our site to your needs.

As people spend increasing time in virtual worlds how will they interoperate between these virtual and real spaces?

SVW'08 was the only international event to take these leading edge issues and addressed them in a compact 2 day event.

The conference theme was Crossing Boundaries and covered topics such as

• Digital Media innovation
• Taking virtual worlds mobile
• Applications of virtual worlds
• views from abroad
• challenges and opportunties

If you weren't able to attend you can view the video of the event here or download our conference report below which also provides additional insight into the world of Serious Virtual Worlds and Games..

You will need to have logged on to access this report - if you have forgotton your password to logon then you can request it here.

The theme for the 2009 conference is Next Generation Learning @ Work and the programme will concentrate on both practice and strategy with a focus on how technology supported learning is critical to busienss performance and success.

Towards Maturity is really proud to support this event. Meet us there:

• Attend our free seminar on the 28th of January for the launch of the 2008 research findings
• Visit stand 107 to discuss your own benchmark survey results
• we will also be presenting in the main conference - looking at Learning Engagement in the real world with Zbigniew Wojciech from Toyota Motor Europe and Jon Aveling from NCALT

Find out more:

when : 28th and 29th of January 09

where: Olympia 2 , London

www.learningtechnologies.co.uk

Organisations across a range of sectors have been taking part during the last few weeks and its not too late to join in ( here).

These are just some of the comments we have received from those who recieved their reports recently:

• ‘I just wanted to say thank you very much for this report, it’s definitely come at the right time for us and will help support our development; it’s really good to know where we are in relation to other organisations too.’
• I wanted to say how impressed I was with your benchmark report and how much I appreciated the links to the independent resources as a next step.
• Thanks for this!   It seems that we have a few areas that need addressing but overall we are doing OK. I really do like the independent links , they are worth a read!!!!
• Thanks. I wasn’t quite sure how this would look as a personalized report so I’m pleasantly surprised.
• I liked the fact that this provided us with useful feedback in such a succinct way
• it has highlighted how far we have to go.
• This has been a salutary reminder of how much more we could be doing...

The 2008 review is aimed at those implementing learning technologies for staff in their own workplace. The review will be closing on the 28th of November and everyone who completes it will receive their benchmark report before Christmas!

You can start the review here - ( if you have already started but not finished, just click on the link from the same PC and it will take you back where you left off)

The full report will be published at the end of January and Launched at Learning Technologies 09 ( where you can meet the Towards maturity Research team in person on stand 107 at Olympia 2 on the 28th and 29th of January).

A national campaign to improve awareness of the benefits of adopting learning technologies in the workplace was launched  last night at the E-learning awards 2008. (Download the launch speech below)

 Technology transforms our lives. When effectively used to build knowledge and skills in the workplace, it can transform the performance of both individuals and businesses.

We know that organisations can:

• deliver more for less
• reduce carbon footprint
• improve competitiveness and productivity
• extend learning opportunities

And so much more!

But the best examples come from those who are doing this for themselves. Next Generation Learning @ Work provides a platform to collectively share experience and encourage success.

The campaign is encouraging everyone to say what Next Generation Learning @ Work means to you (via a short podcast, a quote or observation, a case study, evidence of your successes) and we encourage everyone to get involved at www.nextgenerationlearning.org.uk/work

If you can't wait to do that - use the make a suggestion box below and tell us what you think Next Generation Learning @ Work means to you.

The campaign is backed by Becta as part of a wider initiative to promote benefits of learning technologies in schools.

But significantly ,Next Generation Learning @ Work is industry led and is supported by:

• Towards Maturity ( as founding ambassador)
• e-learning age magazine
• The E-learning awards
• eLearning Network
• Learning Technologies
• The Learning and Skills Group
• learndirect
• Skillsoft
• Skills for Health
• e-skills UK
• Kineo
• Hibernia College
• the Association of Learning Providers

and many others.. why not join us?

find out how at www.nextgenerationlearning.org.uk/work 

Most Innovative New Product or Tool in E-learning

• GOLD - Digital publishing
• SILVER - Autology
• BRONZE - Diageo and Epic

Most Innovative Application of Learning Technology

• Commendation to Edvantage Group and Bupa
• Commendation  to Royal Navy in conjunction with IMC UK

Excellence in the Production of Learning Content

• GOLD - NCALT
• SILVER - Royal Bank of Scotland
• Special mention also to LINE Communications

Meeting the Needs of Compliance for an External Regulator

• WINNER- Coventry Building Society
• Commendation to Unicorn Training Group, the Chartered Insurance Institute & the British Insurance Brokers Association

Best E-learning Project Securing Widespread Adoption

• GOLD - Doctors.net.uk
• SILVER - Toyota and CERTPOINT Europe
• Special mention - NCALT

Best Use of Rapid E-learning Content

• GOLD - BBC Training & Development
• SILVER - Kineo & Cable & Wireless

Best Use of Synchronous E-learning

• GOLD - The Dental Channel
• SILVER - Stockton City Learning Centre

Best Online or Distance Learning Project

• GOLD - e-Learning for Healthcare
• SILVER - Hibernia College
• Commendation to Plan

Best Learning Game, Simulation or Virtual Environment

• WINNER - Caspian Learning

E-learning Internal Project Team of the Year

• WINNER - AXA UK

E-learning Development Company of the Year

• WINNER - Kineo

E-learning Industry Award for Outstanding Achievement - Corporate

• WINNER - NCALT

E-learning Industry Award for Outstanding Achievement - Individual

• WINNER - Nick Lee - Hampshire Learning Centre, Hampshire County Council
• WINNER - Peter Phillips - Unicorn Training Group 

1. Introduce e-coaching supported by a shared working tool.

Getting virtual teams to work better together speeds up transformation, improves production, enhances customer service and cuts costs; just what is needed in a recession. It capitalises on the skills of the existing workforce spreading the knowledge of the experts around the organisation by e-coaching. But when the coach is not immediatelt to hand the support tool is. 

In the case of Johnson Controls they used the QuickwinsTM tool from Relay Consultants.   This provides an operational change approach aligning small crossorganisational teams with strategic change initiatives that are typically delivered in parallel over longer time-frames.

But other and cheaper methods can be made to work (See the Coke-Cola story mentioned below). The ingrediants needed are: good internet access across the company (not always Broadband), subject experts or tutors who are prepared to work on-line, telephones, access to a discussion forum that can be focused on specific topics (and for guidance on discussion forums read how London Gifted and Talented do it) and learners who are willing to learn and collaborate on-line.

2. Get a steer from the Royal Navy.

If you think your subject is too practical; think again. The Royal School of Marine Engineering trains engineering, a very practical subject. E-learning increased the amount of time spent on practical activity and reduced the overall length of the training saving more than was spent; and trainees still quailfy as Modern Apprentices.

The e-learning simplifies the theory of electrical circuits, fluid flow, hydraulics, propulsion systems and a host of other marine systems. It makes it easier to understand and is available 24/7 for those who want to revise or get ahead. The case study is coming soon but meanwhile listen to Cdr Andy Cree of HMS Sultan 

A similar approach might use video recordings of maintenace tasks especialy on equipment that is diificult for people to get to. Video can be simple to shoot and edit well with the expertise of a subject specialist or trainer.

3. Follow the lead of Subject experts; they produce content.

Bowie Castlebank  has produced four major courses in 4 months. They estimate that the same courses would have cost over £100,000 to commission externally. The courses were launched over a new company intranet and although there were teething problems with the PC’s and intranet, the uptake rate of 57% was excellent compared to the 30% that Bowie Castlebank had researched as the norm externally. In addition they have been able to re-organise how they deliver training at an estimated saving of £300,000. How's that for recession beating.

They used Atlantic Link but there are other rapid e-learning tools click the tag on Towards Maturity or read the article by Kineo 

4. Think about the environment

The Environment Agency have to do that all the time. That may not have been the over riding factor in investing in e-learning in water law but that has been a benefit as well as eliminating travel costs when training the inspectors who licence the abstraction of water by companies. The task is not particuarly frequent but all Inspectors need the training. Learners are located throughout the UK and previously attended a classroom course. Now they learn in their own office and are tested on their knowledge not only eliminating travel costs but they no longer have to wait for a course to be arranged; they get the learning when they need it. An additional benefit is that inspectors can refresh their knowledge easily just before visiting a client.

This course uses a story telling approach for a largely theoritcal topic but the second tip from the Environment Agency

5. Use virtual walk throughs instead of actual visits

The Agency give permits to intensive farming units (large pig and poultry farms to you and me). This is another infrequently performed task but inspectors must be familar with large pig farms; the e-learning solution uses a simulated farm visits. Read the case study.  This is a sophisticated product from Can Studios Ltd with simulations of the farms that change as the learners make decisions. Possible applications of this technique might be health and safety inspections, technical maintenance (perhaps of heating systems), factory equipment, any situation where the learner has to travel to a site to learn a task.

Similar benefit may be achieved with simplified walk throughs; perhaps recording video and editing into a framework that reflects the layout of the facility to be visited. The same type of learning can be undetaken with the difference that learners cannot see the consequences of their actions.

6. Get advice from the Pensions Requlator

The word from the Pensions Requlator is that print costs plus distribution and storage costs are more than the cost of developing e-learning. Listen to Terry Clayworth telling you what they did. They used to distribute workbooks and study packs to Trustees of Pensions Funds around the country. They commissioned e-learning from Epic and this cost less than the print, storage and distribution annual charges; not only recession beating but good for the environment.

7. Take a leaf out of Coke-Cola's Book
Eliminate travel costs by taking the classroom to the learners, at home and in the office. This is the approach used by Coke-Cola to train staff in South America from Europe.  A combination of a virtual classroom Webex , telephone conferencing, a discussion web site, survey tools and on-line management tools and expert tutors meant that learners stayed at the office (or in many cases at home) during virtual classroom sessions that were supported over time with the various other tools.
The course worked much as a classroom course woudl with periods of individual work (off-line), syndicate work (using the discussion forums), asking questions (via the survey tool and the virtual classroom) and interactive presentations (via the virtual classroom).

The result was about 6 days of intensive study and practice ove a period of three weeks during which learners attended 6 90 minute virtual classroom sessions with the remainder of the work being done at times to suit their personal convenience and the demands of the business.

Demonstrating value is also one of the 6 strands from the Towards Maturity Model . Our research over the years has shown that  it is one of the main activities that helps us increase the impact and take up of our solutions back in the workplace.

How can we go about demonstrating value?

We are not talking about full blown return on investment studies here ( although that certainly can help when we have time and resources to do them). And we are definitely not just talking about showing how we can saving money over traditional classroom programmes ( although again that will probably help in these recessionary times). So what do we mean by demonstrating value? The criteria set by the eLearning network for this this years e-learning awards asked participants to illustrate their successes in a number of ways - demonstrating value was integral for every catagory. Criteria  included:

> Provide proof of benefits,
> Verification that the programme has achieved required results
> Support to back up claims that performance has been affected
> Evidence on how stakeholders and learners have responded
> Demonstrations of the effectiveness in meeting organisational needs.

These are not just critieria, tagged on to help us  winning awards- our research has shown that this type of activity should be an integral part of our implementation and design processes, if we want to deliver valuable business solutions - so  how do we go about doing this more effectively?

Keep an eye on the end game

The process of  demonstrating value starts with the ability to identify the value for  key stakeholders at the outset– this includes the learners, their managers and other influential people reliant on the outcomes.  Different stakeholders will have different expectations on value from the experience and each will exert a  different influence on your programme’s success . Clear, smart and mutually agreed objectives for each stakeholder group provides an agreed point of reference as you implement your solution( and a good excuse to engage early). 

When it comes to engaging business managers, the initial conversation about expected results also provides an opportunity  to start gathering the existing business metrics that they expect to improve. Understanding what value looks like for learners will also help in the design process and the engagement process – otherwise we might not get the balance right. Relevance, convenience and recognition of success will be higher on the learners list than perhaps the sponsor.

It is also important to have an eye on the area of demonstrating value throughout the rollout process.  What questions are we asking in the iterative prototyping and pilot phases of the project? Adding a few questions that indicate the participants perception of usefulness here might help later on: eg

• In what ways will you use this back at work?
• Would you recommend this to anyone else at work and why?
• Who else should know about this programme and why?

Gathering feedback

How are organisations getting feedback from their learners? Most organisations use a feedback sheet after each course, with some form of follow up action taken in approaching a third of cases. We found that an alarming 7% of organisations do not gather learner feedback at all.

Our research showed that organisations achieving the best business impact are also offering better follow-up for their learners once they are back at work in the form of focus groups, following up with learners once they return to work and discussion in team meetings.

Feedback can be gathered and recorded in a number of different ways – Cable & Wireless worked with Kineo to take advantage of tools like survey monkey to gather learner feedback and to work with learners ( and their managers) to follow up after a programme. Simple idea, easy to implement and effective in continually demonstrating value back to the business.

Powerful and pithy anecdotes and quotes can also work well - they illustrated the benefits of the solution more eloquently than anything. I have seen great use of personalised stories - captured in print or even via audio and video diaries when staff can highlight how they are applying their new skills back at work.

Anecdotal evidence should not be underestimated – it enriches a story or busieness case and makes it come alive. This is even more important when you are looking to demonstrate the value of solutions to learners, managers and sponsors back at work. We know that peer recommendation is more powerful than anything that learning and development professionals can say. We should take every opportunity to gather it and use it.

Measuring what you can

Anecdotes are powerful but metrics that indicate organisational improvement speak loud and clear ( particularly to budget holders and line managers) and yet this is an area that we often dismiss as being too difficult or too time consuming.  We should gather the easy stuff just as a matter of course – how many have been through the programmes, how many have completed and the comparative value of doing using learning technologies vs other media.

Value in terms of cost savings is important ( particularly in the financial climate) but how would we answer the CFO’s question about ‘ why shouldn’t I jsut cut all learning at the  moment?’ or the learners complaint that ‘ they are just throwing the cheap stuff at us now’.

We need to be able to talk about the additional value that our more cost effective learning solutions will add to the business and that means being willing to talk to directors about business metrics and staff moral/motivation in order to get their feedback on how they think the intervention has contributed to that metric.  There are lots of models to help this process, a full measurement process will probably only be used on the most high profile solutions but the discussions around adding business value should be central in all of our conversations.

Communicating success

Now is not the time to be shy – once you have gathered evidence, use it! Continually! Using whatever means you can! Email, intranet, posters, viral campaigns, peer to peer recommendations, slides prepared for your manager’s or MD’s next presentation, league tables, regular management updates, learner award ceremonies, newsletters…..

The list is endless. Good relationships with internal comms teams can prove invaluable – they who could well be working on the comms angle of your learning intervention anyway, particularly if it is part of an organisational change programme.

Feedback, measurement, communication are all critical strands for demonstrating value – if you want to win next year at the awards or if you want to win hearts and minds next month back in the workplace, then get started today!

Tactics for demonstrating value

1. Measure what you can when you can, as seamlessly as possible
2. Gather anecdotes and use them where you can.
3. Target communications to different stakeholders
4. Communicate specifically against value measures agreed at the start
5. Use focus groups and feedback sessions to identify unexpected value add
6. Focus on enabling peer to peer communications:
> Recommend a friend on your programmes
> Video diaries
> Podcasts
> Interviews with high profile learners
> Use all intranet and web site opportunities to share peer to peer evidence

It is aimed at those implementing learning technologies for staff in their own workplace. All those who complete this review receive a personalised benchmark report  that highlights strengths and weaknesses. 

Is it worth the time? - here are just a few of the things that people are saying about the review:

"It was really useful completing the survey, it gave me time to reflect and take stock. I can see how advanced we are in Cisco" David Loewy, Field Client Manager, Cisco Systems Ltd

"I've found that participating in the research programmes from the Towards Maturity team has always provided a good opportunity to 'take stock'. Their pragmatic approach to benchmarking good practice provides a very useful source of industry information and food for thought" Mike Booth,Learning Technologies Manager, Cable&Wireless

I have just completed the Towards Maturity 2008 Benchmark review and found the process of taking part really useful.  We don’t have anything like this in the NHS at the moment and I am looking forward to seeing the results. It will be very helpful to know how our activities compare with others so that we can build on our strengths and improve our weaknesses’  Alison Wright,E-Learning Programme Manager, NHS Education South Central
 

"It takes time and experience to embed learning technologies properly and we have found that taking part in the Towards Maturity research over the past few years has been a really useful exercise to help us compare our experiences and collectively learn from others also on that journey" - Charles Jennings, Global Head of Learning, Thomson Reuters

''Once again, we are proud to support Towards Maturity’s 2008 benchmark review. This comprehensive research programme has been running for 4 years now and we’ve found that it not only is one of the most reliable indicators of the trends in e-learning adoption for the UK but it  also provides practical benchmarks for individual participants wanting to improve the impact of learning technologies in their own workplace.'' Donald H Taylor – chair of Learning Technologies and Learning and Skills group

''The eLearning Network is a keen supporter of the Towards Maturity research, which does so much to spread good practice and to highlight the issues that need addressing if e-learning is to achieve its full potential'' Clive Shepherd, Chair, eLearning Network

‘This impressive, powerful and comprehensive piece of research is exactly the right instrument to investigate and benchmark the maturity of e-learning nationally; the BILD is happy to endorse, promote and support it fully.’ Jack Wills. Chair The British Institute for Learning and Development (BILD)

Full results from the 2008 review are available in the Driving Business Benefits report released Jan 09.

Elearning Network - Thinking Sync-Live e-learning 

 26th September (HIgh Holborn in London)

This event is for anyone looking to make the most of live e-learning as part of their blend of delivery. Synchronous elearning takes many forms, from the use of everyday tools such as instant messaging and Skype, through to the use of virtual classrooms for small group sessions and webinars, and the increasing use of virtual worlds to provide immersive 3D experiences and simulation.

These events always promise practical advice and great networking opportunties.

Click here to find out more and to book a place

Royal Carribean Cruise Line Raid - Training that raises a company profile - 15th October

This unique forum, run by Informatology, allows all participants to dip into the experiences of each other and of the host organisation to boost the impact of their own use of learning technology.

As an added bonus - the RCCL are hosting this Raid onboard their newest most innovative ship "Independence of the Seas" docked at Southampton, the largest ever to be home-ported in Europe.

This promises to be one of the most distinctive and exciting venues you'll ever attend a learning event!

Click here to find out more and to book a place

The Centre for Excellence in Leadership has a task to transform the provision of learning through the Further Education and Skills sector.  One of their strategic projects is to help leaders in FE manage and lead the new technology agenda in learning.  Within that strategic aim they have developed a resource pack of activities, presentations and tools that will assist colleges in their strategic thinking on the ILT agenda (Information and Learning Technologies).  The resource pack provides an e-learning quality improvement programme (eQulP) for colleges.  It is available to managers in college who attend a one-day familiarisation programme.  Over 34% of colleges in England have trained facilitators of the eQulP programme. These facilitators train senior management to manage ILT strategically. They organise and deliver a change process within their colleges; thus maximising the reach of the eQulP across the FE sector.  The experience to date provides valuable lessons for organisations in all sectors.  A recent report describes the experiences of five colleges.  Two points emerge from the programme as a whole.

1. The major challenge faced across the sector is changing the leadership perception that learning technologies are a strategic issue requiring drive from the top echelons of management.
2. Participants on the course leave with enthusiasm and determination to implement the programme but some have neither the status within their colleges nor the personal confidence to engage top management in the strategic issues.

Leadership matters

The report emphasises the importance of leadership.  Engaging senior leaders is a critical part of the eQulP programme. Amongst the eQulP tools is an e-learning position statement (eLPS) which allows individuals to assess for themselves the status of ILT within the college.  Getting top management to do their own self-assessment proved beneficial in engaging them in the ILT debate.  As one member of staff said “one of the biggest benefits was that staff were actually asked for their opinion on where they thought we were up to, where the school was up to and where they personally felt they were up to.”  The tools are available on-line. Some senior management teams found it more comfortable to use paper-based versions; compressed to make allowance for the busy schedules of top management. These tools raise the awareness of senior managers to the potential of ILT.  The key issues faced by all colleges were highlighted and then could be better managed by the top team. 

Success depended largely on encouraging senior management teams to develop, for themselves, the innovative strategies for the development of ILT throughout the colleges.  One college described the process: “The e-learning position statements were used with each member of the senior management team and other key staff.  Analysis of the results provided a clear idea of the expectations of individual SMT members and highlighted a possible strategic direction and milestone.” 

And a comment from another college: “Setting a vision was a priority for us.”

The Towards Maturity research goes further; in the last survey we found that the most significant difference in e-learning maturity comes when top managers themselves are users of e-learning.  The Centre for Excellence in Leadership within the FE sector provides an on-line library in collaboration with the Chartered Management Institute specifically aimed at senior management within the sector.  Top management therefore have the tools to set examples within their college on the use of ILT personally.

Engaging Middle Managers 

The experiences reported in the case studies show the need for the change process to be universal.  As well as working with top management eQulP is used to increase the awareness, across the whole organisation, to the potential of learning technologies.  The purpose is to make middle management part of the process; as one college said: “Helping managers to realise that learning technologies are  not something provided for them, or done to them, but something they need to work at to make the most of.” 

This engagement works best when the senior management team cascades the training themselves to all middle managers, stating their own aspirations for the future use of ILT within the organisation.  At the same time middle and top management can develop jointly action plans for implementing the top management vision.  Some colleges also used external consultants in this process because they carried greater authority and credibility than the internal team.

Benefits for the Institution

A benefit mentioned in many of the case studies was the ability to benchmark the current state of ILT: as a starting point for future change and a means of measuring progress.  The involvement of middle management also meant that there was a more efficient and effective use of ILT resources already present in the college; it proved easier for college staff to learn from each other.  In the case of Fareham College [check] this extended beyond the boundaries of the college and the eQulP facilitator delivered programmes to other colleges in the South East area. 

The more open debate also encouraged those who needed help in implementing learning technologies to come forward and ask for it.  Case studies also cite improved recruitment and success rates and more accurate and easier monitoring of data.

Lessons learnt for learning leadership

1. It is essential to have someone in charge of learning technology initiatives who can make strategic, operational and budgetary decisions based on informed data. 

2. At the early stages of a development it is a good idea to have a group of people with varied backgrounds who can specify their requirements and highlight future needs.  It is best to do this before any substantial budget is spent: particularly before buying systems.  Time spent at this early stage of development is never wasted. 

3. Staff should be trained before the resources are delivered although the training programme should not raise unrealistic expectations. 

4. Learning Technologies should not be seen as “add on” but as part of the normal way of managing the college. 

5. At an early stage input to top and senior management should be relevant to their roles presented using their language.  The eLPS* tool is very useful in this respect in stimulating high level discussions. 

6. It is also essential that the feedback from the eLPS is fed back to senior managers immediately in appropriate language, both to gain their respect and so that interest and motivation are maintained. 

7. Engaging the academic middleman issues in the cascade process strengthens and broadens the future use of learning technologies within the institution.

But the senior team are key to this and the facilitator has to gain their attention. One case study said: “It may have been better for one of the senior managers to attend the eQulP programme.”  

* whilst the eLPS tool is designed for FE colleges, the Towards Maturity Benchmark review provides similar points of reference and discussion for those in learning leadership in the world of work.

What do Learners think

All the case studies list many benefits for learners, accessibility, enjoyment, greater involvement in managing their learning, greater access to material, the ability to work from home, improved reliability of their IT support and teachers who are better trained and equipped to support them.  All the case studies report universally improved environments for learning; one last quote from the report “It was important to get the full backing of the principal and senior management team.”

The full report with the case studies is available here

The e-skills UK research highlighted that the sector still has significant skills gaps , with employers reporting  70% of staff with skills gaps are lacking technical skills, 30% business skills, and 31% interpersonal skills. Perhaps more significantly,  81% of companies reporting skills gaps amongst their IT & Telecoms professionals report an adverse effect on their business.

The IT sector - originally ahead of the e-learning curve

The technology sector has always been challenged with the ongoing need to keep skills up to date, given the pace of change of technology and the impact of globalisation. As such the IT sector was one of the earliest adopters of technology supported learning. Their need drove investment into developing innovative learning content and learning support, particular to deliver industry certification programmes.  Just before the dot com bubble burst, they sector was ahead of the game. In the late 90’s they had potential access to certification programmes delivered through blended learning, simulations, online mentoring, virtual classroom – in fact some of the best online content and support around at the time.

In 2008 , learning technologies have spread out of the IT domain and have even more potential to engage learners. As early adopters of learning technologies, what are the IT and telecoms sectors doing now? Are they still ahead of the curve? Given the profession’s relatively early access to quite sophisticated content and online support– what worked for them and what didn’t?

How is the IT Sector  currently using learning technologies ? 

In last year’s Towards Maturity research, we found that learning technologies are still frequently used for IT professional skills ( the sector spends about 30% of its learning budget in this area, with an expectation to spend 50% by 2010) . The IT and Telecommunication sector does more induction training and sales and marketing training using e-learning than other sectors. It is also more likely to offer an e-learning component within the supply chain than other sectors.

However we found that only half of the organisations in the It and telecommunications sector include an e-learning component within industry recognised qualifications. In general, the  industry uses e-learning for individuals to acquire specific job-related skills rather than a coherent qualification programme.

 e-skills's Technology Counts report perhaps highlights the drivers behind these findings. Traditional IT ‘entry level’ jobs increasingly located off shore, those based in the UK are instead focused on the application of technology to improve business performance. IT & Telecoms professionals are increasingly expected to be multi-skilled, with business technical and interpersonal skills.  The need for broader skills base, and responsive skills delivery may account for some of the shifts in the way this sector uses learning technologies.

Virignmedia's e-learning journey 

David Perring, (previously Head of Learning Solutions at Virginmedia)described their organisation’s e-learning journey over the past few years. In 2000 they offered their field and back end engineers a generic range of certifications and used generic technical content ( supported by online mentors) to deliver skills. Over the years, budgets and circumstances have ensured that a new approach to learning in this field has evolved. Learning delivery is now  more project oriented and targeted at specific needs, flexing to both people and circumstances.

Whilst generic  IT professional e-learning content  is still used at Virgin media, it is part of an mix of learning technologies used to support overall requirements. New tools such as rapid learning materials, virtual meeting places, electronic performance support and video are now part of the portfolio.  They are also seeing an increase in the use of learning technologies into traditional learning methods such as the classroom where learners can use simulations and multipath decision trees. Technology has meant that learning does not have to be delivered by a trainer all the time – line managers and coaches can also get involved.  This shift in delivery reflects the shift in skills needed within the organisation enabling the technology skills to be delivered in a context that represents the broader organisational business needs.

Changing learning offerings

Skillsoft is certainly one of the biggest providers of e-learning for IT technical skills, Kevin Young – MD SkillSoft - observes that in the earliers days , it is certainly true that the IT profession was the primary user of e-learning. Although there is a much broader base of users across all business functions, they still see that the IT function still represents the largest single segment of users overall. The offering of that Skillsoft has changed over time and they see use of all of the learning assets , ie content, Books 24x7 etc but it’s equally fair to say that the shift of focus to informal learning does mean that their Books 24x7 solution tends to be the most heavily used resource from an it perspective.

And this type of informal learning resource not only is popular but it is also effective. The resource is in use in a range of businesses reliant on technology for competitive success. One widely publicised study from Reuters highlighted that it  provided a return on investment of over 3x the initial investment in 12 months. Over  90% of learners agreed that the service helped them find speedy answers to job related questions, and over 60% believed it saved them time and 40% believed it reduced the need for classroom training.

Skillsoft were also one of the earliest companies to offer online mentoring to support industry and Kevin Young  sees an going demand for this type of learner support aimed at supporting the IT learner through a range of activities of a push and pull nature.

A provider perspective 

The classroom suppliers of technical skills still retain their market share in the UK but over the past few years, more classroom suppliers are being asked to offer multiple channels for skills delivery and there are very few that do not have an ‘online offering’.

Brian Sutton – Director Learning and Development of QA-IQ, a leading UK learning provider confirms that the larger companies they work with are all very interested in anything that can change the current paradigm of work related learning and are keen to see innovation.  They need to train diverse populations and they need to spread key knowledge quickly.  They also cannot afford to have their people away from work for extended periods.

At QA-IQ, they have worked with a range of learning technologies to enhance their offering – some have worked and some have not. In their experience, scheduled virtual classroom is not popular in the blend as IT professionals have little control over time. They have also found that generic technical skills content frustrates many. The new ‘learning technology’ kids on the block include simulations or virtual labs (like Toolwire) that allow hands on practice in a live environment. 

QA-IQ have also found that good quality test preparation environments ( once the domain of e-learning specialists) are  also popular now with learners and companies.  They are advocates of Microsoft’s MODL ( which combines virtual classroom with e-Labs and discussions) and see it as a great idea and a genuine attempt to adopt a new pedagogy, it.  Those who have tried it like it and have got on well.  However the adoption has been slow and very patchy.  Brian comments that , there appears to be a disparity between what employers ask for and what they are prepared to invest in.  He comments ‘At L&D meetings up and down the country I hear impassioned pleas for more innovative self paced learning – but when these solutions are offered organizations tend to back track immediately.’

In QA-IQ’s experience,  once you get to more senior levels these same companies appreciate that perhaps the most important element of a learning event is not the content but the opportunity to network with peers from other parts of the globe or business.  Here technology has a significant opportunity to support peer to peer networks but it seems that the IT professionals are slow to adopt some web 2.0 technologies.

e-learning for IT at Lloyds TSB

At Lloyds TSB, they have been using e-learning to deliver technical skills for over 10 years. They initially offered a curriculum on CD which has since moved to the web. Whilst the organisation still underpins most of  most of their learning in the same way, they haven’t moved to using anything ‘new’ such as blogs, wikis. Gary Bellamy , Learning Technologies Senior Manager in their Talent and Learning Directorate, believes that in fairness this is mostly due to the fact that the business infrastructure couldn’t cope with anything else. However he believes that this is now change through the introduction of  Sharepoint with it’s collaborative tools. They are also looking at  IE7 as an updated interface and are now getting heavily in to using the full functionality of Flash and Adobe. Whilst IT divisions were the earliest adopters of learning technologies, the ‘e’ Central team within the Talent and Learning Directorate are using more advanced technologies for learner support than the IT function.

So Is the IT sector still ahead of the game ? 

 So Is the IT sector still ahead of the game when it comes to using learning Technologies? The historic use of technology for learning in this sector has driven some of the changes that we take for granted today. Today, there is certainly more opportunity to access a wide range of learning technologies to support the development of skills both formally and informally. There is also the economic drive, outlined by the e-skills UK research for ongoing skills development. The profession cannot afford to stand still. The nature of their skills needs is changing  with a shift to problem solving and business management. However, the creative application of technology to these types of issues appears to be taking place outside of the sector, giving the IT sector the opportunity to learn from others experience.

 For more information on the work of e-skills Uk on behalf of the IT sector please visit www.e-skills.com.

this article originally appeared in e-learning age magasine in april 08.

In part 2 -  Before, During and After, we explored the need to increase your business analysis efforts before and after the learning intervention.  In this article, we explore some of the key things you need to manage or influence to ensure successful delivery of your learning or learning technology strategy.  You will get much greater value if you read part 1 and part 2 first.

From A to Z
Delivering your strategy is often a journey and one that can take several years.  Rarely will you be able to jump from your point of departure (PoD) to your point of arrival (PoA) in one step.  The journey involves managing many critical elements or processes, ensuring they compliment and support the execution of your strategy.

So what might be critical?
This varies from organisation to organisation and very much depend on where you start (PoD) and where you want to go (PoA).  Commonly recurring issues include the IT Strategy and how this supports, or not, the learning strategy.  If you have any element of online learning, the IT strategy will be a key enabler or inhibitor to you.  What’s more you, as the L&D Manager, do not even own or manage the IT infrastructure.  You therefore need to inform and influence the IT Director and ensure they embrace your aspirations and also ensure the IT infrastructure is developed to support the delivery of your strategy.  This could cover numerous requirements from bandwidth, desktop functionality, software such as browsers and plug-in, firewall settings, VPN remote access requirements and so on.  You might have the best eContent but if it cannot be delivered to the end user in a seamless and engaging manner, then you will not be perceived as being successful.

Identify the elements, define where you are today and where you need to be:
Other examples of directly managed issues are:  The skills and capabilities of the L&D team, your eContent strategy, Learning Technology strategy, Learning Governance.  Other indirect ones might include the IT helpdesk, culture, legal and company policies.

Let’s say for example that you strategy calls for the development of a blended learning solution which includes eLearning and performance support tools (e.g. information or knowledge management support, tied into a process or other system such as a call centre management system).  Does the L&D team have the appropriate skills to procure and/or author content, can they successfully mange the delivery of this content?  Do they understand the technology?  Set out what skills and capabilities will be necessary at your point of arrival – that is the ideal end state you seek to achieve.  What is the gap?  How are you going to fill it and how long will this take and what will it cost?  You will soon see that you cannot jump overnight from where you are to where you want to be.

eContent strategy:  If you need to be able to delivery content on demand within a performance support system then the content itself needs to be authored and created in an appropriate way, often in small bite size pieces rather than longer course structures.  Have you got the LMS technology that can deliver these “nuggets” of learning?  Can the LMS also serve them up as “courses” or curricula?  Can the user search for them easily, perhaps from the Intranet Homepage or within another application?  Can other systems link into the LMS and extract the learning and track and report activity?  Essential elements here include the LMS functionality, single sign-on, deep linking into the LMS and so on.    Again, assess where you are today and where you need to get to:  Set out the eContent and Learning Technology roadmap to undertake this journey.

Legal and other Policies:  What internal policies exist which might support or inhibit your strategy?  Blogging and Wikis are often looked upon with a great deal of nervousness, especially in regulated industries.  If your strategy includes collaborative learning, do your company policies support this?  Can they be influenced and changed?  Some policies may directly impact on your desire to offer remote access to the learning system and resources.  It may not just be a technical issue that restrains you.

Company Culture:  This again could be an area you need to influence and change in order that your strategy can be delivered appropriately.  Do line managers’ support there staff learning at their desks, or do they constantly interrupt them because they are there and not in a classroom?  Is independent learning and informal learning supported, valued and recognised?  Once again, define the ideal end point and evaluate where you are today.  Define the steps necessary that will be needed to move forward.

Manage all of these issues either directly or indirectly:
When working with companies in my consulting business, having developed the strategy, we identify all the relevant issues that need managing or influencing to ensure the successful delivery of the strategy.  Then we define our PoD and PoA and create defined and achievable steps for each one and assign a cost or value to this.  This helps to build the business case and clarifies the investment needed.  Having done this, we can plot where we are on a spider diagram and re-evaluate and report progress often on a 6 or 12 month cycle.  This is a great tool for reporting or the progress on sub-sections of the business, countries, departments etc. as well as an overall view of progress. 

The spider chart shows only the main heading that you have determined to be relevant.  Behind each one, could be several contributing factors, all of which need to be evaluated, managed and scored.  Your defined PoA (point of arrival) is scored at a 5.

Good luck with your journey!

This article is produced with Permission by Gordon Bull

1. Plugging skill gaps
2. Integration
3. The Learner
4. Engagement

1. Build it and they will come! (No they won’t!)
2. People never change (Yes they do!)
3. Keep it real (By embracing ‘real world’ and current technologies)

• 84% of 15 – 24 year olds use the Internet
• 90% od people who are online use broadband
• 91% access email
• 27.6% view video clips
• 86% own a mobile phone